a fragile line
by grim grace
Summary: So it turns out that getting over Peter Parker is harder to do than she'd thought. But damn it all, that won't stop Gwen from trying. (G/P)
1. prologue

**Disclaimer: **title goes to Taylor Swift, as it's a lyric of her song 'Haunted' which I was listening to when I decided to write this story. Anything else that you recognise belongs to Marvel, and all other people who have rights to the Spiderman 'verse'.

**Nb. **This is, essentially, a Gwen Stacy fic. Peter will, of course, feature, but so will a lot of OC's that I've decided are a part of Gwen's life, as well as a new boyfriend, her work and her family. If that gets too tedious for you, then you might want to just jump ship now. But I ask you to give it a chance because I've been working on it for some time.

.

**prologue**

**.**

Gwen is standing on a bridge.

The wind is biting at her neck and her eyes are watering. There's a cackling in her ear, loud and shrill and painful and Gwen can't figure out if she's crying because of the cold or if it's the fear that's pounding through her body, in and with her blood. There's a solid, icy hand digging into the flesh of her arm, holding her in place.

The thing is that she loves Brooklyn bridge. She runs across it every morning with Lou, and it feels complicit in her exercise. It's a brilliant New York landmark and people have pictures of it in their rooms and wish to see it.

But she doesn't like it now. To make matters worse it's raining, and the water feels harsh and stings as it pelts her skin. Her graduation gown is soaked through and her mascara is running and she errantly wonders what her mother thinks about where she is.

Spiderman's not here yet, so the cameras and reporters haven't arrived either. Gwen really hopes her brother's aren't watching the news because this could be one of those things that really scars them for life.

This is the part she's supposed to be brave for. The madman has her—has _kidnapped _her, like that's not six kinds of cliché—and he's practically dancing around her he's so excited now. His nails are still digging into her arm and she can smell explosives on him. It's a trap, this whole thing is a trap and it's such a trite storyline that she knows that Peter must get it. He has to have a plan because not having a plan could result in something very bad. (There's a feeling in her gut. A feeling that makes her want to vomit. She holds it in because she knows her captor with only laugh some more). Even in the cold it's hot because he's set some fires—a trap, she can tell, because she's not an idiot. She feels like crying and she wishes someone were here.

(Even though, yeah, she's supposed to be an empowered woman and crying for a rescuer doesn't really fit that stereotype).

So she cries some more, because she knows as well that as soon as _he _comes, because he will and he'll do it soon, something bad is going to happen.

Something really, really bad.

When Peter does come she's not sure if she's going to feel an overwhelming sense of guilt and horror—shock and fear and panic—or relief because he'll be there, in front of her. She feels horrible thinking about it—because Peter is putting himself in danger because of her. Which is kind of why her father told Peter to stay away from her.

Well no. George told Peter to stay away from Gwen to keep Gwen safe. And Gwen had disregarded it, thrown it away and thought that that was totally irrational. It wasn't her father's decision to make, he wasn't allowed to tell her who to spend time with and who not to spend time with, even from beyond the grave.

But if she'd known that Peter would get hurt because of her? She would have never spoken to him again.

**.**

A/N: Future chapters will be much, much longer. Nonetheless, review?


	2. one

**Disclaimer: **title goes to Taylor Swift, as it's a lyric of her song 'Haunted' which I was listening to when I decided to write this story. Anything else that you recognise belongs to Marvel, and all other people who have rights to the Spiderman 'verse'.

**Nb. **Here's the first chapter, so you don't have to wait too long and can decide if you're really interested to see the rest of this story. I hope you like it.

**.**

The thing is, people have always expected Gwen to act more maturely than her age might suggest.

It doesn't really matter most of the time because she doesn't mind. She doesn't want to be seen as just another annoying teenage girl who pretends to be stupid for the sake of other people's dignity. She knows what she wants to do, why she wants to get there and, probably most important of all, she knows exactly how she's going to do it. She's determined and intelligent and she enjoys all the activities she does, really. The fact that they really add to her college applications is just an added bonus.

But the thing is, if you keep outshining people's expectations all the time, then people start expecting that of you all the time and they always seem more disappointed when you can't live up to the expectations.

So her boss goes crazy and turns himself into a lizard and her dad dies and her superhero boyfriend breaks up with her by deciding to just stop communicating. And of course, no one expects these things to just roll over her head (and yeah, when she explained to everyone she left a couple of details out, duh) but she feels like she's letting everyone down when she curls up in her bed and cries.

Her two younger brother's look at her, confused, like they can't figure out why their sister—who's always moving and always thinking—has shut down and stopped. Her mom seems to understand, and is happy to stay up late and eat ice cream with her, but Gwen's tears make her mother cry and she hates seeing it so she tries to stay away. Which, of course, makes her mother more upset so she doesn't really know what to do. Her older brother comes home for the funeral, but he feels the loss more strongly when he's home so he goes back to Berkley almost as soon as he can.

Needless to say, Gwen needs someone to blame and—because she really is just seventeen and she is still a teenage girl—Peter ends up being that person.

She thinks of some vindictive references to spiders that she can mutter under her breath when she sees him. They're not great and she can't use them in front of any one because the whole freaking city has suddenly decided that Spiderman's the bee's knees and all her friends look at her weirdly when she says something bad about him.

(If they all knew that Spiderman had waited for her to show up on his doorstep in the rain and crying after her father's funeral to break up with her, they'd _totally_ understand). But, as it is—they don't get it. Sometimes she wants to scream it at them all. The truth, I mean. But she's still a good person so she's not just going to expose his secret because she's angry with him.

She likes to think that she's a little above just outright glaring when she sees him, so she settles for this wide eyed, disappointed look because it's better than the other look that's straining to get out (it's not much more than just raw emotion on her face, she thinks, and she's never seen it in the mirror because it _only _appears when Peter is around, so she can't really measure how bad it is. But she knows that Peter's a smart guy and if he sees the look he'll suddenly be able to see into her soul and realise that she's screaming inside, crying and desperate for him to maybe, just maybe take her back. And that's pathetic so that just won't do).

So she gives him this look that she's practiced and rehearsed and tries not to feel like a horrible human being when, after a couple of weeks, he stops looking up to meet her eye.

Ugh. It would be so much easier to see Peter as that bad guy if he actually _was _being a bad guy. But no, he had to go and break up with her and give her the only reason in the whole world that made _him_ come out as the good guy. What a bastard.

She heads down to Oscorp once the police tape is taken down and they've rechecked her security clearance. Seeing as it was her boss who went crazy and destroyed most of the building, they're apparently pretty suspicious of her. Which is stupid because it's her dad that was murdered on the roof, and when they figure out that it's the same Stacy on her badge as the one on his grave stone, their eyes get wide and they get all hushed as they let her through.

There's still scaffolding up around the areas of the building that were more damaged, and when Gwen steps out of the lift on the twenty seventh floor, it's really, _really _weird to feel the fresh air on her face from where they still haven't replaced the glass of the windows. She avoids going near the builders or the building site, (because heights freak her out enough, thank you very much, and she got vertigo when she stood near the windows _with _glass), and instead heads straight for the offices.

Dr. Connor's office was almost demolished when the Lizard had gotten going but it's almost completely fixed now, and Gwen can see a man in a white lab coat walking around inside and staring at some clipboards. As she walks forward, Gwen glances at the cupboard that she'd hidden in _that night_ and feels a rush of fear run down her spine. She lets it take her for a moment, a single second, before she regains control and brushes the feeling away. She's made of sturdy stuff, she reminds herself.

She knocks on the door after a deep breath and pushes inside without waiting for an invitation. This internship is hers, damnit, and she won't lose it because her boss made some mistakes. (Big ones, yes, but she's lost enough because of him).

Obviously, she's not very quiet with her entrance, and the man starts, looking towards her in shock. It's comical, yes, but Gwen is suddenly preoccupied with realising that she knows this man. She's been working with him all year and she feels kind of stupid for thinking that they were going to bring in totally new people.

"Gwen?" Dr. Jakes says. He sounds confused, and unsure and a little overwhelmed which is understandable, but he looks well kept and to most people he probably just looks tired which is, again, totally understandable.

Gwen fights not to look pitying because she knows how irritating the pity looks are. Instead she settles for letting out an exclamation of surprise. "Kevin!" she says. "You're in the boss's office."

She tries not to sound too shocked but if the wry smile that appears on his face in response is any indication, she fails pretty dismally.

"I am." He concedes. "Apparently when the man you're working for decides to transform into a giant dragon and then try to turn most of Manhattan into giant dragons, that's an automatic promotion for me." He smiled grimly for a moment. "He should have done it sooner and saved me three years of grunt work."

He's stressed and she can tell that he's only trying to lighten the mood and make a joke. It's probably a joke that he's said more than a couple of times this morning with exactly the same intent, but it hurts. Not like it did but she must react physically or something because Kevin's eyes bug out and he let out this horrified little '_meep!'_ noise as he realises what he's said.

"Oh, _shit._" He says. (He's only in his mid thirties and he's always sworn but now he's her boss and it's suddenly weird). "Oh, my god—Gwen, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

Gwen's already retreating slightly, pulling back into herself and shaking her head. She sucks her top lip and bites, trying not to look too distressed. "Yeah! No." She says immediately. "No, no—no problem."

Kevin calms slightly. "Gwen. It was stupid. I'm sorry."

She pauses slightly but it's been two months and she still doesn't know what to say at all. Kevin doesn't look at all comfortable in the silence but he seems to get that there's nothing else he can do. It continues for a couple of minutes, and then he awkwardly continues what he'd been saying.

"Of course, no one told me that I'd been promoted so I didn't come in and now I'm already in trouble with the big guy. Has anyone ever explained to you just how terrifying Norman Osborn is? Because I feel that someone should have warned me."

Gwen had heard rumours, but nothing too substantial and she wasn't one to bad mouth other people without a reason.

"Sorry," she says. "I don't want to be fired." She senses a segue there, and it's the opportunity she needs so she goes for it (she knows what she wants and she knows how to get there, remember?) "Speaking of, bossman—I need to talk to you about my internship."

Kevin's eyes go wide immediately. Now, he's a brilliant man and when he steps into the science he is always, _always_ the smartest man in the room, but he's not nearly as impressive in any other scenario and her words actually make him take a defensive step back.

"Gwen, please—"

She seems to have a knack for being able to talk to men who have trouble talking back, so she steps forward, like she's following him. "We are talking about this, Kevin, and we're talking about this now. You're my boss now, and that's fine—but I'm not losing anything more because of what's happened."

There's a moment of silence, but Gwen stands her ground.

Kevin stares at her with wide eyes.

"Losing?" he finally breathes out. "What? — Jesus, Gwen—did you think we were going to get rid of you?"

And while Gwen usually prides herself on being ahead of others, and a logical thinker who's usually able to predict an outcome (she's a science gal, after all), that's definitely not what she saw coming.

"What?"

"Christ, Gwen." Kevin says. "We were going to offer you a proper job here. There isn't really a job here suited for students so I was going to sort out a new position, which essentially means we'd need you on at least one weekday per week..."

He sort of starts thinking about his idea more that talking about it and starts to trail off which is something he'll have to do less if he's actually going to be in charge now, so Gwen decides to start talking.

"Wow—wait." She says. "That would be—forget what I just said—I want that."

Kev stops talking to laugh slightly. He shrugs like it's not a remote problem even though when Gwen applied for the same sort of deal with Connors at the start of the year he'd told her there was a huge amount of legal hoops to go through for something like that. "It's what you deserve Gwen." Kev says simply. "Either way. You're better than I was at your age."

Gwen glows.

"You'll have to work for it, obviously." He continues. "And go to college. And come back her afterwards. I'm not shaping you to be the best if you're not going to work for us."

It's a joke, but Gwen gets it. It makes sense that someone who worked in the Oscorp labs at her age would be wanted in a lot of places which is why this is a fantastic opportunity, but you know how she gets what she wants and knows how to get there? Oscorp is what she wants because it's the best and this is what the best is offering her.

"Deal." She says immediately. "Just tell me where to sign."

(It's _obviously_ not that simple and he tells her that he'll have the contract worked up in a couple of weeks. When he does get it all sorted out with Legal, she takes it home and goes over it extensively, then goes over it again, and then again with her mother and then once again with her careers advisor from school. Once they're absolutely certain she's not locking herself into any corners, she signs it. The confidentiality clause is the only thing that she wasn't allowed to question at all, but that doesn't matter because it's Oscorp and they're the best and this is only to be expected).

**.**

The rest of the year passes quickly. It's time for exams already and they've really snuck up on her. She doesn't get any extensions now, and she understands why that is. All the assessment tasks she had when it happened were postponed and that was more than enough special consideration. But the school system had structure and rules and she couldn't graduate if she didn't work with the system, so this was the way it was.

So she settles herself in her work and focuses on spending more time with her brothers because they miss heading down to the park with their father. She works at Oscorp some more, she studies, she signs up for more extracurricular for her senior year and she finds things getting easier.

In that time the Stacy's buy a dog. Well, no. They're given a dog. He's a retiring guard dog from the Force. The man who gives it to them—a long time friend of Gwen's father—says it's just because he knows they'll give him a good home and they'll look after him, but Gwen knows it's because of a conversation he'd had with her brothers.

(Simon—the younger one—had heard the priest at the funeral talk about the crime in the city that her father had always tried to protect people from, and he'd wandered up to and asked David—her dad's friend—how they would stay safe without their dad around. It was a natural progression of thoughts but it broke Gwen's heart).

So yeah. Even though it's been a couple of months, it looks like David has been looking into it, and he brings them the dog. He's a German Shepherd, and technically their building doesn't allow large pets, but their landlord has known the family for a long time and doesn't mind.

They don't get around to naming him for a while, until someone jokes that he's a replacement of the Captain. He's not. He's another noise, another soul to fill an unfillable empty space in their home. He's a dog, not a man and certainly not some sort of pathetic substitute. So it gets cold and quiet and uncomfortable for a moment after the man says it, until Gwen's mother resolutely shakes her head.

"He'll have to do a lot of work to be any sort of replacement." She says, and it's sad but true. It'll never happen because in reality they've lost a father and a husband and there's no denying that.

But still, it leads to an idea, and since Captain Stacy always got a kick out of funny names, and it makes the boys giggle, they end up calling the dog 'The Lieutenant' most of the time, which is then, eventually, shortened to 'Lou'.

It's nice having a dog—Gwen's wanted one since she was little—and with a dog she finds she's able to do more activities to take her mind from certain truths about the year she's trying to avoid. Being a jogger in New York and a young woman at the same time is always dangerous, but now that they've got a dog—and one that was trained in the Police Academy at that—means that she can now go running without having to worry.

So jogging in the mornings become one of her daily rituals and it helps, it really helps, to be doing proper exercise. Sometimes she lets herself sleep in for an extra half hour, though, and instead goes out around dusk.

And it's dangerous, it's always dangerous, but she's got Lou and no one's had the courage enough to brave him yet.

Of course, the running means she's out more often—not just holed up in her room or hiding in the school library. She's actually out on the streets, which means she gets a really good view when there's a mugging across the street.

She pauses when she hears she scream of shock, pulling on Lou's leash with one hand and pulling her ear buds out with the other as she glances across the road. There's a woman—older than her and wearing stiletto heels—still screeching and pointing an accusatory finger down the road—where a thug dressed in black is running in the opposite direction, her ostentatious purse shoved under his arm.

Gwen is about to sic Lou on him, and feel vindictively proud of herself for doing so, when _duh,_ Spiderman comes in and saves the day.

He swoops down on his thread—and really, _how _could he have known? It's not like it was on his crazy police scanner or anything. There hadn't been time. Maybe he really did have some sort of spidey sense about the whole thing.

But he swings and it's a low one and she thinks for a moment that Peter has over calculated how much web he needs and is going to slice himself up against the asphalt—but he clears it by centimetres and continues to swing.

It takes a second but she actually feels the wind from his momentum blow back her hair (or, the wisps that have escaped her pony tail while she ran).

Of course it doesn't take him long, and within seconds he's got a thief webbed to a wall and he's strolling down the road to give the woman back her purse. She lets out a string of thank you's that Gwen just knows is making Peter grin his stupid grin even with the mask covering his face and Gwen rolls her eyes and sighs.

As if he _heard _her, his head snaps up and he catches her gaze.

She starts, and takes a step back—not sure what to do or where to look. Her gaze swings a couple of times, trying to settle, and she knows she's blushing as he watches. She takes another step back and looks away, knowing she won't look at him again. She shoves her ear bud back in and turns, pulling slightly on the chain to let Lou know that the excitement is over before starting to run again.

Her face is burning and that was _embarrassing _and maybe, just maybe, she understands the upside of covering your face when you're in public.

She considers not going for a run the next night, but then she thinks about the ice cream that Peter has caused her to eat in the last couple of months and glares at the wall. If he has influence over how much she eats, then he damn well better not complain that this is how she gets rid of that.

She grabs Lou's leash and leaves.

**.**

You wouldn't really think so, but it turns out that running is really good for you. Not just in the expected 'you can walk up stairs without panting' kind of way that everyone tells her about. Her legs start to look better and her stomach looks nicer as well. It could just be her imagination—everyone wants to see the results of exercise immediately—but when school finally finishes and Howard comes home from university and the family heads up to Florida for the break, she feels pretty good walking around in her bikini.

Her grandparents live in Florida in an awesome beach house. Their back deck has stairs that disappear right into the sand and a hammock that Gwen likes to sleep in when it gets really hot and sticky. They bring Lou, of course, and again—having a dog seems to make things easier. She doesn't have to worry about people coming by and approaching her while she sleeps because Lou seems to understand the problem and refuses to leave her alone when she's outside.

She wonders if that's a little weird, but she like the feeling of being protected—having an ally—and when she falls asleep in the hammock, Lou is always snoozing right beneath her, his head resting on his paws while her hand brushes sleepily through his fur.

Phillip and Simon get annoyed that Lou likes her more than he likes them, and Howard just thinks it's hilarious, but Gwen tells them that's what happens when she's the one to take him on walks and feed him every day.

They only spend a week of the summer break away from Florida, and it's in June, when they head to New Jersey to spend a few days with their paternal grandparents. Grandma looks like she's been crying but she was always a tough woman, and Granddad just looks tired. They leave Lou in Florida because the retirement village that they're visiting really definitely doesn't allow pets, and Gwen misses him.

But it's a better sort of missing, because she knows that once the week is over, she'll be able to go back and see him again. It's probably really pathetic that Lou has suddenly become her new best friend and she resolves to work on her social life when school starts again in September.

Along with all the other stuff she'll have in her schedule.

They go back to the beach and they eat on the deck and play in the water and Gwen's mother really smiles for the first time in a long time and Gwen decides that this is alright. This is what she needed.

When they get home, back to the hustle and bustle of New York City, Gwen is feeling relaxed and unwound and like maybe, just maybe, this year won't be as horrible as she's expecting it to be.

**. **

**A/N: **I feel I should mention that I'm not from the northern hemisphere and therefore have no idea about how the school year works in America. I know it's essentially opposite to what goes on in Australia, but our summer holidays always stretch across Christmas and New Years, so if you spot any mistakes on that vein, feel free to let me know. (If you spot any mistakes, for that matter. I go over the chapters before I publish them but I don't have a beta, so I'd love the constructive feedback).

Please review.


	3. two

**Disclaimer: **title goes to Taylor Swift, as it's a lyric of her song 'Haunted' which I was listening to when I decided to write this story. Anything else that you recognise belongs to Marvel, and all other people who have rights to the Spiderman 'verse'.

**Nb. **I'm glad that there was a response to this story and I'm really grateful for all the reviews. Here we see some more canon characters make an appearance, as well as some OC's. I thought I'd also tell you that this is non-canon compliant because I'm not a comic book reader and if I tried to make it canon-canon, I would butcher it horrifically. I hope you enjoy, nonetheless.

**.**

It has been a hot summer and because of that, when Gwen returns to school for her final year, she's one of the few girls on campus wearing clothes that can be properly defined as, well, _clothes_. And she gets it, she does. It's hot and no one wants to spend their time, even if autumn has just begun, sweating in a classroom because they were being conservative with their clothes. And, to be perfectly honest, with the way fashion works these days, it's very easy to come to class in little more than some denim shorts and a singlet.

(Hell, even Gwen is wearing a denim skirt—but it doesn't show the world the tops of her thighs and she's wearing a floaty high neck, button up shirt so she doesn't look like some sort of tramp).

But the thing is, it's hard to stay reasonable and think logically when she's watching Mary Jane, an old friend from middle school who she hasn't talking to in a while, walk around in a small shirt and small shorts and leaning against Peter's side like she's allowed to.

Which she is. Because, logically, there's no reason Peter shouldn't be allowed to date MJ. Because he and Gwen haven't talked since that day on his front porch and Gwen's not particularly keen to relive that.

But still, you know. MJ and her were friends once and surely she had figured out what was going on between Gwen and Peter.

Since when did she even talk to Peter, for that matter.

She investigates further when she arrives at her AP Physics class and sits down near her friends. Neither MJ or Peter are in this class but talking about it at school is a risk anyway because this is a _high school_ and in high schools, news travels fast.

Especially if it's juicy gossip.

But she needs to know so she just asks as quietly as she can.

Her friends give her a look. Lucy, who Gwen's known since kindergarten and who knows all about the Peter saga (Spiderman excluding), gives her a look that's a mix between suspicious and sad. If there's not really a name for the emotion, Gwen doesn't mind because it does its job and Gwen shifts slightly.

But still, she holds her ground. "Seriously." She says again. "Since when has MJ been friends with Peter?"

There's a moment during which Lucy studies Gwen's face. Her eyes rake across Gwen's features but Gwen isn't going to back down so she just takes a deep breath and levels her gaze. Finally, Luce sighs.

"MJ's mom moved out of state during the summer, so she moved in with her dad. Apparently Parker's like her neighbour now." Lucy says.

Gwen tries not to think about how absolutely annoying that is. It's not even that she'll have to put up with them at school—but with the knowledge that Peter and MJ will be hanging out after school as well. Surely, it's easier to sneak out when you only have to creep a couple of metres?

Of course, there's nothing to suggest that MJ and Peter are actually together. It still brings out a swell of jealousy in her gut that she desperately tries to expel.

Lucy is watching her knowingly as Gwen reacts to the news and Gwen flushes slightly, finally dropping her gaze. Right, she's supposed to be being subtle.

"Where'd her mom move to?" Gwen asks, trying to sound as casual as possible. Surely that's the way to go about it? By asking about MJ and not about Peter?

Lucy shrugs and lets out a 'mmph' noise that Gwen assumes means she doesn't know. Jess, who's been silent until now, looks up from where she's doodling in her new notebook and smiles. "Phoenix." She says. "MJ told me that her mom's boyfriend has a house there and they're going to fix it up. Apparently they've got a pool."

Gwen nods, not really sure where to go with that information. She hasn't spoken to MJ in a while but even as a fourteen year old she'd known that MJ's mom had had problems with MJ's dad. She's not sure how to feel about this new MJ news, when you take Peter away from the equation, but it feels a lot more sympathetic than before.

"Why didn't they take her with them?" Gwen asks.

Jess shrugs and Lucy looks at Gwen with a frown. "How should we know?"

(Lucy's always been a bit headstrong so the way that she asks that question would probably get other people on the defensive. But Gwen knows and loves Lucy so she doesn't mind the tone, instead shrugging and letting the subject change).

"How were your holidays?" she asks.

As Lucy launches into a story about her trip to Wisconsin for her cousin's wedding and all the horrors that that entails, Gwen zones out. She pulls out her notebook and grabs a pen and starts writing down the stuff that's already on the board (her teacher's name—even though Physics has been taught by Mr. Greenway since she started her—and the date, and the subjects that they'll be covering this year).

"Did you hear about the attack in Times Square?" Gwen hears someone whisper behind her.

"No, what? There was an attack in Times Square?"

"Yeah—there was this giant explosion and this man was flying around on this hover board thing and Spiderman had to come a save a bunch of people?"

"Really? Damn, I missed it. Is it on youtube?"

"Yeah. I'll show you at lunch."

Gwen drops her head in her hands and wonders if she's ever really going to be able to forget about her ex-boyfriend when he'll be doing brave and admirable things like saving people's lives and fighting evil murderous lunatics. Seriously. It's bad enough that she has to see him every day for the rest of the year, but she has to be the only one on the planet who knows that the bruises he gets aren't from skate boarding (they're from saving damsels in distress) and he's not late because he's a slacker (he's late because he's saving the city). Can't he just act like an asshole and let her hate him completely for leaving her?

Ugh. He's such a tool.

(Ugh. He's really,_ really _not).

.

One of the many things that Gwen signed up for before her junior year ended was to be a student guide for new students. So, naturally, one of the first things she's asked to do when school starts back is speak to the new kid. She's one of many volunteers (most of them all figuring out now that they need to pad their college applications and vying for some activities) but they pair her up with this new kid because they apparently have shared interests.

When asked about her interests, Gwen writes: science, tennis, extracurricular activities. When she's asked where she wants to be in fifteen years she says: working at Oscorp.

Apparently the kid she's showing around had answered that in fifteen years he pictured himself _owning _Oscorp.

Which makes sense, she realises, when she later finds out that his name is Harry Osborn and he's been homeschooled for most of his life. He seems excited to be attending a real school which seems interesting because Gwen's always wanted to know what it's like to be homeschooled and it looks like Harry has always wanted to know the opposite. It's one of those 'grass is always greener' situations.

When she meets him she's not sure what to expect. She knows that Norman Osborn is, as Kev keeps telling her, really fucking scary. But surely his son is a nice person, right? It's not like being fucking scary is a genetic disorder. So she heads to the admin office and struggles to keep an open mind.

Sure enough, he's not terrifying or intimidating or anything—he's just a tall young guy with blonde curly hair and black stylish glasses. His eyes are funny, grey and kind of hard to read, but Gwen brushes that off as attributes she knows of the father that she's automatically giving to the son, so she sticks out her hand with a smile.

"Hi," she says, and her smile feels a little false but it's not like she's unhappy to be here she's just unhappy about her life in general at the moment. Harry doesn't seem to pick it up. He just seems surprised. Gwen frowns slightly. "You were expecting me, right?"

Harry jumps slightly as he registers her words and then moves quickly. "Oh—yeah—yes, sorry. I just—I'm not used to having all of this happening." He gestured to the other students who are pushing and shoving their way through the halls outside. "Is it always this loud?" he asks.

Gwen smiles and decides that it's really not that intimidating showing around the kid of the man she works for, because he's kind of cute and a little bit funny.

"Mostly just breaks and after school. In the mornings, everyone's usually too tired to get too excited—but it's always louder in the summer." Gwen says.

Harry's face lights up in a grin. "Awesome."

He goes on to explain that after having classes with one British tutor for five years, a little noise is exactly what he needs. He lives in a penthouse with his father and his live in house keeper but his dad is pretty sick so he's always bedridden. Gwen thinks about whether or not that's something that she would be comfortable sharing with someone she's just met. Probably not but then again even if they don't really have much in common, he should feel comfortable telling whoever he wants whatever he likes.

She shows him the school gym because that's where most of the guys like to go, but Harry doesn't seem particularly interested. He lights up when she mentions the drama club so she's happy to take him in that direction.

"I saw my first Broadway play when I was seven." Harry tells them. "My nanny took me to see The Lion King. It was my favourite Disney movie when I was a kid."

"Mine was The Fox and the Hound."

Harry makes a little '_eh'_ sound that tells Gwen he's not impressed. "Seriously? I would have bet you liked all the Princess ones."

Is it embarrassing that Gwen immediately knows the answer to that? (No. No it's not because every girl in the world loves her Disney Princesses and she shouldn't be any different). "I didn't like Sleeping Beauty." Gwen tells him quickly. "The bad guy in that one terrified me."

Harry lets out a bark of laughter. "She's the witch that turns into the dragon at the end, right?" Gwen nods and Harry continues to chuckle. "Yeah, she was a little freaky." He pauses for a moment. "I always liked the animal ones more. You know—The Fox and the Hound and The Lady and the Tramp and Bambi."

Gwen's eyes go wide. "I hate Bambi." She says immediately.

Harry looks affronted. "What? _Why?" _

(For the record, under different circumstances this would be the funniest conversation Gwen has ever had with a boy. Not many guys her age are willing to admit they've seen Disney films, let alone stand up and defend them).

"Bambi is a classic." Harry says.

"It's so _sad._"

They argue in this vein for a couple more minutes as they gradually get closer and closer to the auditorium. Because it's Harry's orientation day and not his first day of school, he doesn't have anywhere to be, and Gwen's been let out of her first two periods of the day to give him this tour. Usually new kids bring along a parent, but she's already learned why Harry's come alone. The point is that right now, the halls are empty and Gwen thinks that they'll probably catch the drama class mid practice.

"Rehearsal." Harry corrects her when she tells him this.

Gwen rolls her eyes, and Harry launches right back into his points about the fantastic morals and story line hidden between the lines in Bambi.

When they arrive at the drama rooms, Harry is in the middle of explaining to her that the death of Bambi's mother is symbolic in that it means he's now got to grow up and fend for himself in a world that's previously appeared soft and innocent. It's a breaking of the facade, he tells her. It's a loss of innocence that every child has to go through in order to fully start growing.

Whatever. Gwen still can't get through it without crying like a little baby.

Sure enough, they arrive in the middle of a rehearsal, so they sneak into the auditorium and sit in the back rows of the hall until the teacher calls cut. She tells her students to practice some improvisation and Gwen and Harry head forward. Harry talks to the teacher, Ms. Lassiter, for about half an hour about how he can get into the class and why he's so interested. Because the school is a school for science, the curriculum board has to be careful with its other classes so getting in will require Harry to do an audition. He books a time with Ms. Lassiter then and there and she grins widely at him, telling him he's got a passion that she'll be interested to see on stage.

When Gwen finally gets him out of the room, they've only got about fifteen minutes left of the tour before it's morning break and Gwen has to leave him.

"It was nice meeting you," Harry says to her when she directs him back to the admin office and it's time to say goodbye.

Gwen smiles at him. "You too. I look forward to more Disney debate." She says.

He grins like she hasn't just said something that lame, and nods. "You're my friend now, right?" he says, and it's a bit out of the blue so Gwen smirks.

"Sorry?"

"You're my friend now—that's how making friends works? I've never had a school friend before." Harry says, and it makes sense because, again, Harry has been homeschooled his whole life and he really doesn't have much of a clue when it comes to the social hierarchy of a high school.

"Yeah," Gwen says with a smile on her face. "We're friends."

The responding grin on Harry's face is enough to make her laugh out loud and she does, letting out a breathless giggle before rolling her eyes. She can see Lucy and Jess approaching her from behind him and she waves at them, getting them to stop.

Harry turns to see who she's waving at and smiles awkwardly at them before turning back to her. "I should go," he says, "I think my dad has a car out front—but I'll see you tomorrow, right?"

Gwen grins. "Right."

And then he's on his way. His father did have a car waiting—a large black limo with tinted windows and a personal driver—and Harry vanishes without a hassle. Jess and Lucy practically assault her in their bid to reach her quickly.

"Who was _that?_" Jess demands immediately.

Even Lucy, who's always been a bit vague when it come to boys (she prefers to play it cool when it comes to the opposite sex but she's not really good at it so she often just comes across cold and uninterested), is a little pink in the cheeks. "Yeah," she says. "He was hot."

.

Gwen doesn't end up seeing Harry the next day. They don't have any classes together and she doesn't have any spare time on Tuesday's because she's got band practice in the morning (she plays the flute), a tutoring session with Flash at lunch and tennis practice after school. Because of her early morning practice and the exercise that tennis provides, she ends up not taking Lou out for a run that day and he looks suitably forlorn for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday, however, she does run into him—even though it's really not under what she would call a perfect circumstance.

(The thing is, you see, it's not like she's into Harry or anything. She's already got all the emotional baggage she can handle right now and she doesn't need to drop rich drama kid with daddy issues right on top of all that. Even if she did—and she did have the option because both Jess and Lucy had agreed that Gwen had first dibs due to the fact that Gwen had met him first, but she could see the annoyance in their eyes which would have ended badly and Gwen turned that down as well—Jess was really, really into him and Gwen wasn't one to stand in the way of true love.

But the point remains that Harry was nice and he was funny and he seemed like he could have been a really good friend. And that was all ruined now, so Gwen's allowed to feel a little bit pouty).

See, one of the first things the seniors are expected to do when they return to school is pose for their yearbook pictures. The school likes to get their yearbook designed as early as possible, so it can get through the printers faster and back to the students quickly. Because they immediately get into their work schedule the students are given a list of times that the photographers will be available and told to write down which session they'll be attending.

Gwen decides, along with her friends, to go to a Wednesday lunch time session because it doesn't get in the way of any classes even if it does cut into their break. She goes with Lucy and Jess because it's always so awkward just standing around by yourself, even if you are a senior. It turns out that not many people were interested in missing out on their break to stand for a photo so the room is relatively empty (well, emptier than it would have been if this were the timeslot during Specialist Math. There's still a good twenty to thirty of her classmates standing around her).

Included in that small group, of course, are Peter and MJ. And, because this is her life now, Harry is standing with them and they're laughing at something Peter's just said and all Gwen can think about is how this is just exactly what she doesn't need right now.

She avoids them, and sticks closer to Lucy and Jess. Jess ,who's honed in on Harry's position as well, is looking grumpy and sour and Gwen is oh so thankful that they're friends right now.

"You know," Jess says as she glares across the room. "You're right about MJ. I don't know what her deal is, but she is getting on my nerves."

Gwen considers saying that, really, she never said anything like that about MJ—just asked a couple of questions about why she might be hanging out with Peter these days—but then she figures that it's pretty much been implied from the get go and she instead decides to go with a solid, "_mhmm."_

The photographs are taken in alphabetical order, because that's obviously the easiest way to go about it. They don't have to stand in a line or anything, but the room is divided by the giant camera and the light equipment that comes with it, and on one side of the room are all the kids who've yet to have their photo taken, and on the other side of the room are the kids who've already posed for their photo but still have to hand over the little piece of paper with the barcode and their name on it so that everyone knows who's photo is who's.

Because her last name is Chambers, Jess is one of the first to go through and she smiles (side on, tilt of the head, demure smirk) at the camera before waiting kind of awkwardly on the other side of the room.

Gwen chats idly to Lucy while she waits, during which Lucy spends most of the time complaining about her last name and why her mother was stupid enough to marry a guy who's last name was 'Williams'. "I mean," Lucy says. "Seriously. Her maiden name is Ackerman. She could have at least tried to hyphenate the name, right?"

Gwen is still chuckling slightly when her name is called. "Ooh, hang on," Lucy says, "take your hair out, Stacy, it's your senior year." And Gwen's still got her headband so it looks remotely neat out so she does and flicks the hair tie at Lucy.

She moves forward and hands her card to the photographer so he can write down her number before she moves to sit on the little stool. She doesn't really know what to do with her hands, and she feels kind of uncomfortable sitting for the picture, but she smiles and tries to look as relaxed and happy as she can.

The flash goes off and she doesn't think she's sold it but the photographer tells her it's fine and sends her on her way, which means that it was good enough.

It's only as she's hopping off the stool, already looking to find Jess in the crowd, that she realises who it is her friend is talking to.

Obviously, she should have guessed.

"Gwen!" Harry says when he sees her. "You know Peter, right?"

Jess immediately shoots her a really apologetic look, which both the boys miss because they're busy looking at her. Harry is smiling, enthusiastic and expectant, and Peter is shuffling awkwardly, obviously trying to figure out which is nicer to look at—Gwen's face, or the scuff mark's his shoes are leaving on the floor.

"We've met." Gwen says as calmly as she can. Her gaze meets Peter's for a moment, and she struggles momentarily to control that thing that her face does when she sees him—but she comes out triumphant and ends up with Lucy levels of breezy disinterest. "How's your first day going?" she asks, before she remembers it's not actually his first day. Smooth, Stacy. "I mean," she tries to remain calm, "how was it yesterday?"

Harry appears oblivious to the tension in her stance and just grins at her some more.

"Well you weren't there to guide me through the bid bad waters of high school, so I had to improvise for most of the morning." He says. Then he juts a thumb in Peter's direction. "Thank god I met Parker here in Bio."

Gwen smiles thinly again, trying not to give anything away. "How'd you find that class?" she tries to turn the conversation away from Peter, even as she glances at him again. He's got a hand on the back of his neck and he's flushing slightly but he's still looking at her. Gwen looks away again, quickly.

Harry shrugs. "It's about the same level as I'm used to." He says. "But I had to grab some of Parker's study notes to catch up on a couple of things."

Jess takes the opportunity—whether it's to talk to Harry or to get the subject away from Peter, Gwen doesn't know. Or care, really, because it gets the job done and Gwen is once again infinitely glad this girl is her friend.

"Mrs. Collis takes the class really quickly," Jess says. "Everyone struggles keeping up—and it gets harder as the year goes on."

Harry looks a little nervous now. "Yeah?"

Jess shrugs. "Yeah. Sorry—but we have a study group every Monday in the library if you ever feel like coming along."

At that, Harry then looks infinitely relieved and lets out a sigh. "Oh, thank god." He says. Then he elbows Peter in the side and Gwen suddenly knows what's coming. "We might have to check that out, eh Parker?"

Since _when _does Peter like being addressed as 'Parker'? Is that even a thing? He doesn't look bothered, or anything, so it apparently is a thing—which, how can it be a thing if Harry has only know Peter for a day and a half?

As Gwen thinks this, the rest of her is trying not to look at him. Jess is once again wide eyed, now that her plan has backfired and she's inadvertently invited Peter to their study group. She shoots Gwen another look, and Gwen wants to shrug back but she can still feel Peter's eyes on her and she's not going to give herself away.

Peter finds his voice. "Uh—yeah," he says, running his fingers through his hair again. "I'm doing alright in chem., though, so I might—" he doesn't finish, just lets the sentence end there, but everyone gets what he's saying so he doesn't have to.

Gwen doesn't know if that feeling in her stomach is relief or disappointment and that just makes her really, really angry.

Of course, what happens in the next second contributes to her anger as well, but she hides her clenched fists by sticking them in the pockets of her jacket. MJ bounds up to them with a lot of fucking enthusiasm and swings herself onto Peter's arm, practically dragging him down with her weight.

"Hey guys!" She says when she sees Gwen and Jess—who are both looking and feeling more and more uncomfortable by the second. "I haven't talked to you in ages!"

God, why does she have to be so loud?

And why isn't Peter pushing her away yet? She's still just _there_, hanging onto his arm and exchanging meaningful looks with him. And _why isn't Peter pushing her away_ _yet?_

Jess realises pretty quickly that Gwen can't talk for fear of humiliating herself and, because she's a really great friend, jumps right in.

"I know," she says, with a sad look that conveys a really large level of disappointment. "We should really catch up soon. How have you been?"

Gwen could count the things she cares less about than how MJ has been on the fingers of one hand. She tries to keep her expression neutral.

"I've been good," MJ says, with a really wide smile. "I moved in with my dad over in Queens—which is different, but it's pretty cool as well." She shoots Peter a look and he grins slightly and Gwen wants to vomit.

"Cool!" Jess says, and her enthusiasm is matching MJ's more out of necessity than anything else, because Jess isn't usually this excited about other people's small talk and Gwen's realising that talking to MJ is the sort of thing that makes you feel weird for acting normal. "I wish we had more classes together this year—we should catch up."

MJ looks about ready to suggest some way that they could do that, and Jess is rambling enough that there's a chance she'll mention the study group again and no, just no—so Gwen is about to cut in and say something awkward to get the hell out of there, when she feels a hand at her arm.

It's Lucy and she looks a mix between frantic and amused.

"I left my calc stuff in the library." She says immediately. "We need to go get it before lunch ends."

Oh, Gwen thinks. Oh, thank god for good friends.

She nods her head quickly and, trying to look as casual as possible, reaches out for Jess's arm. "It was really good seeing... _you all_ again." Gwen says. As she says 'you all' her gaze meets Peter's again for a second and she really can't help the flush that creeps up her neck. "Sorry that we have to run."

Harry shrugs it off because he's about as oblivious as he is cute. MJ is still hanging onto Peter's arm and Peter is running his hand through his hair _again._

Gwen pulls her friends away as fast as she can without being too obvious and cringes as soon as they're past them.

"God," Lucy says quietly. "That looked _excruciating_."

Behind her, Gwen can hear Peter say something to MJ, and then hear MJ respond (much more clearly because, as recently mentioned, MJ is really, really loud). "Sorry, Parker," MJ is saying and _god_ what is with people calling him by his last name? "It was for your own good."

They pause to push past a couple of people, dropping their bar-coded cards at the desk and giving their names before Gwen rushes forward again with another surge of speed.

Lucy and Jess catch up quickly. Jess looks at Gwen with wide eyes. "I'm so sorry." She says. "I was talking to Harry and I didn't even think about how P comes after O in the alphabet and then all of a sudden he was there and I didn't really know how to leave and I'm so, so _sorry._"

Gwen shakes her head. "It's fine," she says, because it isn't Jess's fault and she is going to see Peter every day so it should be reasonable that she figure out how to behave in his company. She tells them this. "I'll just have to get over it." She says resolutely.

Jess and Lucy don't look convinced though.

Gwen doesn't feel that convinced either.

.

**A/N: ** now I know that Gwen and MJ are friends in canon but again, I'm not sticking too close to canon. Please review :D


	4. three

**A/N: **thanks for the reviews thus far. I got seven hundred hits, and seven reviews though so if we can increase that ratio maybe?

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything that you recognise so all rights go to those who deserve it.

.

The next time Gwen sees Harry it's clear that he's been filled in on the Peter-Gwen saga. She's not sure how close Peter is with the guy so it's probably not with all the details, but it's enough for him to avoid her. When they do run into each other he offers a sad pitying smile where he would have previously said something loud and laughed. It's annoying, Gwen notes, but there's nothing she can do about it and it's nice that Peter's not just hanging out with MJ anymore. Instead, he, Harry and MJ have formed their own little indie threesome and are often seen sitting outside in the sun—Peter fiddling with his skateboard while MJ sunbathes and Harry runs lines (he got into the drama club ipso _prompto_ when he auditioned).

Gwen tries to ignore it and sinks into her studies and her work. She does a lot of work with Kevin, the two of them trying to get restarted on the projects Dr. Connors was working on before he went insane. The investigation of regenerating limbs is put slightly on the back burner while they try to figure out exactly how they're going to get back on top of it and find where Dr. Connors went wrong.

It keeps her busy, which is good, but people are beginning to notice.

This is made very clear to her when, come time for their Thursday tutoring session (she sees him Thursday in the fourth period free and Tuesdays at lunch time), Flash frowns at her over the calc. homework they're supposed to be going over. He's got the end of his pen in his mouth and a cute, confused expression on his face (which is one of the reasons that Gwen maintains he's a much better guy when you get to know him).

"Are you alright?" he asks, displaying a rare moment of genuine interest. He's happy to be more real around her now. A psychologist would say that it's because he, as an insecure person masquerading as confident, knows that he can share details about his life with her and trusts her not to share them (mostly because she's already seen how bad his grades have gotten). It's a level of trust that took a while to build but feels pretty solid now that it's there.

Gwen couches slightly, the question being something that she really doesn't need right now.

"Fine," she says casually, even while she avoids looking him in the eye. "Let's talk about question 4E and where you went wrong."

On the best of days she had trouble getting him to concentrate, so it's really no surprise that here and now, with something important on his mind, he doesn't waste time humouring her.

"Gwen, seriously." He says.

Of course he's got to be this insightful person when she's around him. A part of her kind of wishes she could have the insensitive front he puts up, just for the next hour and a half.

She sighs though, because they're not going to get any work done with this hanging in the air. She claps her hands together on the table and leans forward, looking at him from under her fringe and considering the moment for a second. She works out the words she's going to use if this goes bad, and she tries to figure out the words she has to use anyway.

"What do you mean?" she asks slowly.

If he wants her to have this conversation, then he's going to have to spell it out for her. She's not keen to talk about her current feeling to anyone, and if there was anyone it's wouldn't be him.

Reminding her once again that he's turned over a new leaf (mostly), he doesn't back down.

"Something's messing with you—and it's really obvious. I just want to know what's wrong." He glances around and realises there are a couple of timid freshmen in here who could have overheard. He clears his throat. "Cause, you know, I can't have a messed up tutor."

Okay, so he's got a way to go but at least it's an effort. The first part of the question sounded genuine enough.

Not that it matters. Gwen's not exactly going to listen to one kind of backhanded question and then suddenly go telling him all about her Spiderman/Peter Parker troubles and absolutely everything that that entails.

But she knows how to get him off her back.

"Just having a rough time at home." She says.

It does the trick though and Gwen can see Flash's eyes widen slightly as a flush creeps up his neck and a sad look takes over his face. "Sorry," he says with a small, awkward smile before focusing back on the homework he needed help with. "You were talking about 4e?"

And yeah she feels guilty for using her dad's death as an excuse but it does the trick and she likes to think he wouldn't mind if he were still around. When it came to Gwen being happy, George Stacy would have broken laws.

They continue talking about the calc for a bit, until Flash's hand clenches to a fist and he takes a deep breath. Gwen's worried because of the fist, but not for the reasons you think. It's because she's seen his series of movement when he makes a tough decision and it's pretty much always like that. She realises that the conversation is far from over.

"You know, Gwen," he says slowly, as though he's testing the waters. (Gwen doesn't mind—she's more surprised by the fact that he used her first name). "It's probably not healthy to just hide in school work, you know?"

He looks up at her and catches the suspicious raised brow look that she's shooting him. His neck colours again and he shuffles in his seat.

"I just mean," he struggles to continue, "that sure, you like studying—why wouldn't you? You're _really_ smart—but I think that you probably shouldn't be dealing with—_what happened_ by doing what you're doing."

Gwen frowns slightly as she looks at him. "What am I doing?"

(She knows what she's doing. She would like to hear it from someone else though. A sign that someone else has noticed would be nice, even if the attention that would earn her would be the total opposite).

Flash shrugs, like he doesn't know how to explain it.

"You've just been kinda, I dunno. _Numb_."

And yeah, that's a really good word for how she's been functioning for the last couple of weeks. It's not like she's been walking around like a zombie or anything—but there's been things to do and jobs to get done and assignments to finish, and she does it all because she actually enjoys doing most of it. It's just that once it's all finished she realises that she's really fucking _tired. _

(Like even though it's only a fourth period free right now, Gwen's already run with the dog, headed the social committee, done her oral presentation on bacteria growth and stimulation and half of her English essay—and she's still got to finish tutoring Flash, get home, walk her brothers to their singing lessons, duck into Oscorp to grab some files that she needs to go over and then pick up and walk her brothers back home from their singing lesson. She won't be finished until about six this afternoon, at which point she needs to finish the English essay and do her _own _calculus homework—which means she won't really get to sleep until about midnight.

And don't even get her started on what she has to do on Fridays).

So these days it's easy to just slip into autopilot when she's not really required to do hard thinking. There was a moment, yesterday, when Gwen realised she'd walked from her bio lab, to her locker, grabbed her books and then gotten to the library without remembering the trip there.

And if the reason that she's keeping herself this busy all the time so she can avoid thinking about Peter and her father, then that's nobody's business.

So yeah, numb is a good word.

But she flinches because it's still not what she wants to hear.

Flash doesn't appear to notice. "I mean, we're seniors now. We're actually allowed to do less work this year—" (that's a raging falsity, but Gwen disregards it)"—I mean, you should be at parties and going on dates and stuff. Hey, did you see the new Christopher Nolan movie?"

Gwen shakes her head. He's a genius and everything, but she likes her movies to be simple and charming—ones she doesn't have to think too much to watch—and Christopher Nolan is anything but that.

Not that she's had time to see any movies lately. Still, it brushes over the really awkward 'date' comment that he'd made so Gwen shakes her head and asks, "Is it good?"

Flash launches into a discussion about the new twists and turns of this film that absolutely no one saw coming and how he's not going to ruin the ending for her but it's absolutely fucking awesome and Gwen thinks that might really be the end of it.

But when he wants to be, he's a remarkably astute guy and he pauses slightly when Gwen tries to redirect him to the homework. "Don't think I've forgotten about this Stacy," he says. "Kent Turner's having a Halloween party and I expect to see you there."

And then that's the final word and Gwen doesn't really know what to say.

.

Life goes on in about the same strain and then the month is ending and it's the weekend and it's also Halloween so Kev tells her not to come in on Saturday and Sunday and to just enjoy the holiday.

Gwen's forgotten about this party that Flash mentioned by then, because he's been cool enough to not continuously bring it up, and so she initially plans to just stay in and continue to study. Then, of course, she starts receiving texts from almost everyone she knows (Flash, Jess, Lucy, a girl named Connie in her English class, etc). The end message is the same.

_Dude. Party at Kent's tonight. You had better be there_. (that particular text is from Lucy but all the others are just relaying the same message).

Kent is more a friend of Lucy's than a friend of Gwen's—but people seem to know that girls come in a package deal and people _like _Gwen so she doesn't have to worry about really being invited. What she does have to worry about is the drama that will inevitably come with a party like this and whether or not she really wants to be involved.

She decides that no, she's rather just stay in—and tells the most important people who texted her (Lucy and Jess) that she won't make it on account of taking her brothers out to Trick or Treat.

Both of her friends text back extremely quickly, but it's Jess's message that comes through first. _Come on, Gwen!_ It reads. _Let's live a little. This will be so much fun! _The message makes Gwen frown because Jess isn't really much of a partier and always prefers to stay at home with a boy. It's a Saturday night on a major American holiday—surely Jess has other options for socialising.

Lucy's text, which Gwen reads next, clears up that confusion quickly and leaves absolutely no room for argument.

_Osborn said no when Jess asked him out. So strap on your BFF beer hat and get ready to party her sorrows away._

And that is, of course, enough to change Gwen's mind.

It doesn't change some of her plans—her mother still doesn't like taking Lou on walks which means if the boys want to venture outside of the building Gwen will have to take them (with the dog as a safety measure) and watch out for them. But her brother's are young and parties for kids her age don't get started until ten or eleven anyway, so Gwen decides she can probably fit in both.

Simon and Phillip end up arguing over costumes again (weird and funny at the same time because they're identical twins). It's just Gwen's luck that they're both striving to be Spiderman. There's only one costume—a small onesie with a sewed on six pack—and they're tugging and pulling at it trying to gain the upper hand.

Gwen manages to separate them with relative ease. She gets them to sit down and talk about it and in the end they decide that Simon (still the eldest by two minutes) will wear the suit this year as long as he does Phillip's chores for a week and Phillip gets the silly string that was supposed to act as the web. They leave in a relatively calm state of excitement, discussing with each other exactly what kind of candy they're hoping to get this year.

They end up doing their building and the building next door before the boy's candy bags are full to the brim. The night went well, with only two apartments offering apples and sugar free candy. By the time they get back upstairs and inside they're a cross between way to hyper activated and exhausted from all the nights antics.

Gwen's mom settles them in front of the television while Gwen changes. She kisses her mother on the cheek goodbye, waves at her brothers and heads down. The elevator has just opened in the lobby when, perfectly on time she gets the text from Luce that tells her their taxi is double parked out the front of the building and she should move her ass outside.

Inside the taxi it turns out that Lucy is about as excited as Simon and Phillip were upstairs and Jess has already had a couple of drinks. When Gwen slides in the back seat, Jess lurches slightly and drapes her arms around Gwen's neck. "Do you think I'm pretty, Gwen?" she asks with wide eyes.

Gwen hastens to tell her that yes, she's gorgeous, before turning her frantic eyes to Lucy—who holds up her hands in the surrender position.

"Don't look at me," she says. "She was like this when I picked her up."

From the front seat, Gwen is pretty sure she can hear the taxi driver chuckling.

.

They pull up at Kent's and find their way in quickly, following the sound of teenage noise. There is a heavy dubstep playing in the background—too loud for any real conversation to go on—and there are already lots of kids dancing and drinking. There's a smell in the air that's kind of heavy and she's embarrassed to recognised it. But she does and she pulls Jess away when she starts looking interested because getting high is no way to solve any sort of problem.

"This way," Lucy says, urging them further inside the house. "I have to tell Kent that we're here."

There's not really too many options for where they're to head so Gwen just sort of pushes through the crown in the direction of a less populated area, keeping her grip firm on Jess's arm. When there's suddenly space to breath Gwen realises that yes, she can see Kent now, so she keeps moving.

He's standing in the kitchen holding an uncapped beer in his hand, leaning on the bench while chatting to another guy—who is, yes, also holding an uncapped bottle of beer. She's not sure what they're talking about but they're swaying slightly so it can't be anything too intelligent.

When Kent spots Luce a smile breaks out on his face (not like that. They dated for a couple of weeks in freshman year before they realised that it was way easier to just stay friends) and he beckons her over with a drunken flair. Lucy falls into his arms with about as much excitement while the guy he was talking to turns to see what has caused the distraction.

He's tall enough and blonde and Gwen thinks that he might be in one of her classes this semester but she doesn't remember his name.

Jess wraps an enthusiastic arm around Gwen's neck and pulls her face so close Gwen can feel her alcohol breath on her cheek. "I'm dancing." She declares, way too loudly from that particular proximity, before she spins, slightly wobbly, on her heel and flounces back into the main room.

The four people left in the kitchen stare after her with amusement on their faces.

There's a pause.

"Beer?" Kent breaks the silence.

Both Gwen and Luce say yes. Well kind of. ("Please and thank you," Lucy replies eagerly) but seeing as neither of them are driving tonight it's not a problem. Gwen takes a cold sip from hers gratefully. She's not a moron so she's not going to drown her sorrows in the alcohol or anything but the burn is refreshing—what she needs to keep her away and cold enough to be a relief.

"How early did Jess start off the night?" the guy asks, and now that Gwen can see his face she realises that he was in her trig class last year and she's pretty sure his name is Hunter. (You're not getting a last name, because the first was hard enough to remember).

Lucy grimaces slightly. "She just—got some bad news tonight, that's all."

"What kind of bad news?" Kent asks.

Gwen joins her friend in pulling faces but shrugs. "The rejection kind." She says, and her face is a weird pull of a lot of different emotions right now because there's not really a special face to wear when you're talking about something shit that's happened to your friend. "She asked a guy out and he said no."

Both boys let out an understanding groan and sigh. Hunter leans back on the bar of the kitchen and takes another sip from his beer while Kent pushes himself back and hops up to sit on the same bar. He motions to the stools at the island for the girls and they take them—even if they haven't been up for long, it was smart to take a seat when offered. They were both wearing heels, after all.

"Been there," Kent says with a frown. "It pretty much sucks ass every time, though."

Gwen's only been dumped once but the idea of having to go through it again is practically the most uncomfortable thought she's had in a while. It makes her skin feel tight and her rib cage condense and she thinks yeah, if she'd had access to alcohol that night, she would be reacting about the same way.

"Everyone knows it sucks," Lucy says, but not in that 'duh' kind of way, just in a kind of empathetic 'I'm annoyed my friend's upset' kind of way. "It's not really one of those things you can fix with experience."

Hunter looks at her widely. "Speaking from experience yourself?" he asks.

Lucy frowns again and nods. "Way too much." She says. "It's a field of expertise I would rather know less about."

Kent frowns as well. "Any one we know?"

Lucy smirks at him at that comment and Gwen thinks that he really should have know better. "The worst one?" she says. "You know him intimately, Turner. You broke my heart three years ago and I still don't know how to survive without you."

Like any teenage boy would in that situation, Kent laughs and then shuffles slightly in his seat, uncomfortable because he's not entirely sure how serious she is. When Lucy then starts laughing at that reaction, he flushes horribly and glares at her.

"You're a horrible person." He tells her.

She shrugs. "You dumped me."

He splutters indignantly. "It was mutual!"

Hunter and Gwen laugh at the exchange, and as it dies down it comes time for someone else to say something. Gwen is just considering bringing up asking where Kent's parent's are when Hunter comes up with something way more suited to this conversation.

"Which one of you is on Jess duty tonight?" he asks, before lifting his beer and taking another sip.

It's an interesting question because Gwen wasn't aware that guys were that observational when it came to the antics of women in a depressive rejection spiral, but then again, they must have some way to pick out the girls only looking for rebounds (and yeah, she's discriminating by gender, but whatever. She's young and she's drinking. Sue her).

Lucy lifts her hand. "That would be moi." She says. "Stacy's still too emotionally damaged from her last boy to start dishing out advice."

Gwen knows that it's mostly because Lucy too, had started the night off a little early and she was well on her way to tipsy that Lucy even makes the comment but she still stiffens in the white stool and blushes furiously. She doesn't need anyone else in the world knowing that she got dumped by Peter Parker, because he's moved on so incredibly well and doesn't even seem remotely effected by their separation.

Both the boys eye her with pitying looks, but Lucy keeps talking so Gwen doesn't have to face it right now.

"I don't really know what to say to her though, because it's not like she's been dumped—but it still hurts that much right?" Lucy says.

Kent shrugs. "I guess it just hurts, doesn't matter why." Gwen's starting to think that she knows what he and Lucy didn't work out because he's way too happy talking about his emotions than any guy that Lucy could ever be really serious about. "Who was the guy?" he asks.

"Harry Osborn," Gwen says, because it still annoys her that he could have been a friend and Peter snatched him.

"Oh, I haven't met him yet. My friend's in his drama class and they say he's pretty cool." Kent says.

Gwen shrugs. "He is. He's just—I'm not sure." She shoots him a look even though she doesn't really know what she's trying to say. "I don't think we'll have much to do with him from now on." She says.

Kent makes a grim face and it seems like he gets it. Gwen's heart is still kind of thumping because of the abrupt attention on her recent break up, but it's calming now and she finds herself relaxing back into her chair/stool thing. It's a weird thing to sit in but she's half way through her beer now and beginning to care less.

In fact, maybe in a minute or two she'll go and join Jess for a dance. That wouldn't be bad at all and Jess kind of needs a friend to have fun with right now.

"I hope she feels better soon," Kent says slowly.

Lucy regards him for a moment, eyes narrowing as she looks at him before she lets out an astounded little noise and slaps him solidly on the chest. He recoils and stares at her incredulously. "Ow! _What?_"

She waves a finger in his face. "You are not crushing on my girl tonight, bro." She says immediately. "She just got dumped."

Kent looks a little sour but he's blushing. "You said they didn't date."

Lucy glares at him a little more for a moment, before rolling her eyes. "Come on, man, give it like a week at least. Two weeks if you really want to make sure you're not just some rebound substitute."

Kent nods slowly before freezing slightly, and then he is the one narrowing his eyes at Luce. "Hang on—you're cool with this?"

Lucy scoffs and scoots out of the chair. "Dude, don't even. As far as I'm concerned—we didn't even date." She takes him by the arm and tugs him from his seat on the bench. "Now," she says as she loops her arm through his. "You are going to talk to her and be a wonderful supportive friend tonight. We'll let her fall in love with you in her own time."

She's still giving him advice as she leads him to the dance floor, their abrupt departure leaving Gwen and Hunter in an awkward sort of silence.

The pause continues for another moment, during which Gwen decides to take a sip (alright, a gulp) of her beer. It stings going down but it's a warm sensation and she likes it.

"I'm Hunter, by the way." Hunter says, ducking his head a little. "I'm not sure if you remember me—"

"I do." Gwen interrupts him. "You were in my class last year, right?" she checks. He nods, blushing a bit more now, but she keeps talking. "I just don't remember your last name. Sorry." She finishes rather awkwardly.

He smiles at that so she figures she's done her job right and she thinks that she's really more socially adept when she's not drinking and thinking about a million and one other things on her mind. Like where Lucy is right now. And whether or not she was serious about Kent and Jess. And whether that would work if she was serious. (She thinks it probably would).

"It's Cook," he says, a little bashfully. "Hunter Cook."

Gwen smirks. "Middle name?"

He grins at her now and it's suddenly less awkward which is exactly what she needs. "Well, it's Hunter." He says, smirking at her. "My first name is Joseph, but it's my dad's name as well so I go by Hunter. And yours?"

Gwen shakes her head immediately. "I'll take that secret to the grave, Joseph Hunter Cook," she says with a smile. She wonders vaguely if this is flirting? She's never been very good at it, because to be good at something you need to know what that something is and no one's ever sat Gwen down at a table and taught her what is flirting and what's just joking around with a member of the opposite sex.

But that's not the important question. She's sort of learned to play it by the bat these days, so she can figure it out. When she starts wondering if something is flirting, Lucy told her once, that usually means it's flirting. So this is flirting, by that hypothesis.

So Gwen has to ask herself if that's something that she's okay with right now.

Because Hunter is tall and blonde and really nicely muscled and the grey t-shirt he's wearing really doesn't leave much to the imagination at all. She's certainly not imagining the six pack that the material is stretched across. And he seems nice and she thinks yeah, if he keeps acting like this, then she'd be fine if it was flirting.

Why shouldn't she, after all? She and Peter were finished—over and done with, with no room for argument—and he'd obviously made his peace with that.

So why should she be thinking about him when there's an attractive boy standing opposite her stool, who is (she's at least seventy percent sure right now) flirting with her too?

She downs the rest of her beer in one fell swoop.

Hunter's eyes go wide and he chuckles slightly, taking in the sight. "Wow," he says, a smile on his lips. "Trying to catch up to Jess, are you?"

Gwen rolls her eyes after she swallows. Yeah, that hadn't been the smartest plan. Her eyes are kind of watering now, and her chest is kind of burning. But she manages to hold down a responding cough, and hide the more base reaction to the hot liquid.

"It's a party and I'm a senior." She tells him. "I have it on good authority that I should be loosening up."

As if on cue, Flash spots her from outside and cheers. (_"Whoo, Stacy—I told you, you'd like the party!"_) Hmm. That would be fun to deal with in their next study tute.

But it makes Hunter laugh a little more, and she slips off her stool with a grin on her face. Hunter slows his laughter and frowns. "Want another one?" he asks.

Gwen nods. "Where are they?"

"Over there—just down—oh here." He pushes away from the sink and strolls after her, a couple of steps and directing her to the well hidden mini-fridge that's slotted between the actual fridge and the dishwasher. "Me and Kent moved it out here so no one would snatch his stuff from his room." Hunter explains.

Gwen nods and steps back while Hunter bends over and grabs a cool beer for her before pausing. "There's a raspberry vodka in here, if you're interested?"

And yeah, she's a bit buzzed because she's always been a lightweight, but Flash was kind of right (not that she'll be telling him about this) about letting loose occasionally so she squashes the instinctual no on her lips and instead nods, with a smile.

Hunter places the beer back and instead grabs the glass bottle from the fridge, pulling it out and uncapping it for her. He grabs a beer for himself before he closes the small fridge again and leans next to her. He's close enough that she can feel the warmth from his body on her arm, where they're touching.

She doesn't move.

He peers down at her and Gwen thinks yeah, this time she nailed it because he's definitely interested in her and she thinks errantly for a moment if she has time for a boyfriend. Yes, she thinks resolutely. She does, and it would probably be a welcome relief.

But still, she didn't know his full name fifteen minutes ago and she's not going to kiss him or anything stupid tonight. She's going to have a proper, non-impulsive relationship this time and it's not going to be ruined because they don't share decision and—okay Stacy, she tells herself (and damnit, now she's doing that last name thing), there's no need to let your baggage bring you down this early in the game.

But Gwen doesn't have to worry about the game or her baggage or even how she's going to dodge Hunter's slowly approaching mouth when there's a noise and someone stumbles into the kitchen.

They jerk apart guiltily, even though Gwen knows that she would have stopped anything before it did happen, and both turn to see who it is that's interrupted.

And _of course. _

Because _this _is her life now.

Peter's gaze swings between Gwen and Hunter for a moment, his mouth opening and closing several times as he watches them. Gwen keeps her eyes trained right back on him, not caring at all now what Hunter's doing, and focusing on Peter. Their eyes meet for a second though and immediately Gwen's blushing and looking down because there's really no ignoring what Peter's just walked in on. (And even if it has only been fifteen minutes and Gwen's a bit pathetic, Peter doesn't know that—or she _hopes_ he doesn't know that—and it's pretty obvious that kissing could have occurred).

Peter's jaw snaps shut resolutely and she spins on his heel, without an apology, and stalks back out to the party.

There's a soft pause.

Then Hunter speaks. "Parker's your emotional baggage then, right?" he says and it sounds like he's grimacing.

Gwen's too busy staring at the spot where Peter disappeared into the crowd while simultaneously trying to figure out why she hates it so much that people are calling Peter by his last name to really think about anything else so she just sighs, nods and tries not to look too pathetic.

She's not sure how that last one turned out.

.

**a/n: **don't hate me for bringing in a boyfriend. I thought it was logical because no one can look like Gwen Stacy (oh Emma Stone) and not have more than one person interested. Also, I thought I would apologise for all the OC's that I've brought in, because I know they can get annoying.

Please review.


	5. four

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything that you recognise. All rights go to the respective owners.

**A/N: **Thanks to the one reviewer who reviewed last chapter. Hope you all enjoy.

.

Gwen thinks about it for a bit. She's never been one to really move impulsively so the thought of moving on from Peter is something she thinks about. Logically the first answer is yes. Because Peter's moved on and what she does with his life from now on is none of his concern. But emotionally it's a little more complex than that. She spends a week thinking about whether or not she's ready to again, put herself in a place where she can be so emotionally injured if things go wrong.

(At least, she reasons, Hunter doesn't seem to have some superhero alias that would take up a lot of his time. He's got football practice on Wednesday afternoons, and he takes a judo class at the Y on Mondays, but other than that he's blissfully free).

So they begin sort of tentatively. What they are is undefined at this point, but the evidence suggests that if Gwen weren't so worried about where this will go, they'd be at the 'be my boyfriend' stage.

They've been on a couple of dates (a dinner, a movie and a walk in the park) and they've hung out at each other's house enough times that her mother smiles warmly whenever he comes over. But he hasn't asked anything official and whether that's because he doesn't want to, or he can sense that Gwen really isn't at that point yet, Gwen doesn't know.

They haven't kissed yet, and Gwen's not sure how that's going to happen at this point.

Also, there's a chance that Lucy is secretly giving him advice on how to win her over—the same way that she is with Kent and Jess. They're moving at a faster pace—compared to Jess and Kent, who are already making out in the hallways at any opportunity—Hunter and Gwen are moving glacially slow.

But he doesn't seem to mind and she really appreciates that. Of course, because this is New York, shit then hits the fan and her kind of relationship vanishes from her mind for a couple of days.

The Green Goblin comes into the scene and suddenly everything in the city is thrown into turmoil. Gwen is at work for the first attack, waiting for an analysis of a new chemical sample to finish and texting Hunter about a date they may or may not have that night (it's a Saturday), when suddenly the air in rocking slightly and people are screaming.

Gwen thinks momentarily that the lizard is back and she's about to die—which is stupid and more of a base reaction than anything really thought through. She runs out from the testing labs to see what the commotion is, and it quickly becomes apparent.

Surprisingly, Oscorp is not the building that has been attacked.

It's the large tower next to them that's falling to pieces at one side, while a man dressed in green whizzes through the air leaving an eerie cackle to hang in the air. It looks like it's been an explosion—and Gwen can't see from here how many people have been injured. More and more of her co-workers are gathering near the large window's now, watching in horror.

It's Kev who gets them to realise that just because the building hasn't been hit yet, doesn't mean it won't be. He pulls the fire alarm and calls for everyone to evacuate using the stairs.

Gwen lingers near the window to try and figure out what's going on. Surely she can at least call a news station or something and they can let people know to get out of the area.

A hand closes around her arm and she turns to see Kevin staring at her like she's insane. "Come _on_," he urges, tugging.

That's enough to kick her into gear and she nods hastily as they head towards the stairs. It's crowded, of course, because no matter how many drills they do there's something different about the actual possibility of death so everyone is rushing and far too frantic.

"Don't run!" Kevin calls as people push and shove to get through the small door. "You're not going to do yourself any good by falling to the first floor."

Maybe the first five people around them listen, but they quickly forget again as they're a loud bang from outside. Yeah, that one sounded closer.

"Jesus Christ," Kev says, and he's still holding tightly to her arm.

It's a comfort and Ken is looking pale and white so Gwen does the best she can with one hand and reaches up to squeeze his arm back. The move grounds him slightly and he comes back into his head, focusing. Then he starts barking out more orders—with more authority and more people listen—and then he's pulling her down with the flowing crowd.

Gwen is fiddling with her phone in her free hand, and she's not at all surprised when the screen changes and she sees she's got a call from her mother.

She picks it up because even though she probably doesn't need more things to worry about right now, she knows that not answering might lead her mother to make assumptions and that kind of thinking could kill her.

"Mom," she says into the phone immediately.

Sure enough, Helen Stacy is breathing heavily on the other end of the line. "Oh, Gwen, thank god," she says, her voice shaking as she exhales. Her mother gets control of herself straight away. "Where are you?" she asks. "What's happening?"

It must be on television, or something, Gwen thinks. Her mother's probably watching a live news feed of the building next to hers being attacked. She's doing a remarkably good job at staying level headed.

(Gwen realises with a pang that that's probably got something to do with being married to the police captain for twenty years).

She explains as best she can. "We're evacuating now," she says. "I'll be outside in a couple of minutes and everything will be fine."

She doesn't mention that she and Kev are still on the seventeenth floor, with way too many stairs left to get to the front door. Her mother doesn't need to know that and Gwen's pretty sure that they'll get out. (Or at least, that's what she's got to believe to keep her feet moving).

"I'm alright though," she keeps telling her mother. "Just get the boys and stay inside and I'll be home soon."

She hangs up before her mother can protest, and also because a girl in front of her has just tripped and screamed—even though she only stumbled a few steps before some of the others caught her. She wonders if her mother heard that, thinks that she probably did and then decides that she can't really do anything about that now.

But she grimaces slightly and Kev seems to understand. His hand is on her back now and she can feel him shaking. He's not usually comfortable with other people touching him but it feels like her presence is something that he needs right now so she's happy to be there.

She should have been thinking about more logical things like warning people to not get too close to the railing of the stairs.

Because in the next second there's an explosion and this time it's definitely their building that's been hit. The whole structure shakes and then everyone is shouting and screaming. In the places where the stairs are cramped, full some people are thrown entirely off their feet. But it's a testament to the character of the workers that everyone manages to react quickly.

One man who was unlucky enough to be mid step when the floor started moving stumbles forward too quickly and ends up sailing over a few heads—heading precariously for the railing and there are several shouts of alarm from everyone who witnesses it.

But there's a security guard right there and he must have some amazing reflexes or something because he gets a good hold of the guys shirt and pulls him in. The force knocks the two of them to the ground but no one is heading for a seventeen story fall anymore so they don't seem to mind. Everyone hastens to hold them up and then the shrieking starts again as a second bang hits, this time closer to them.

Suddenly they have to make a decision between staying in the stairwell and holding on to anything solid, or continuing their way down. There isn't any other way out, so the further down they are the better.

Kev is really shaking now, in no place to be telling people what to do but it looks like they don't need the motivation now. Common sense is a brilliant tool that seems to kick in with most of them as they keep moving down—their steps more solid and grasping the railing, each other as steadily as they can.

The building keeps rocking as they make their way down but nothing else too horrible happens and it's not like the stairwell is caving in on them. It's in the very middle of the building for this sort of reason—so that it can stay as sturdy as possible while the rest of the building falls.

Gwen thinks errantly that the builders who had only just finished repairing the building are going to be really pissed.

Walking down all those stairs—something that would have been a chore under any other circumstance—sort of turns into one continuous move. All she focuses on is the thrum of her heartbeat and the weird feeling of her own blood rushing through her. She doesn't register the floors as she passes the signs and the only sign of relief that comes to here is when her feet hit the ground floor.

The fire doors have been wedged open and some people are going through the revolving door, so there's a constant stream of people out of the building. The pavement outside is crowded and traffic has come to a standstill because of the hundreds of people with nowhere other than the streets to go.

Gwen keeps her grip on Kev's hand tight as she drags him outside. He's not talking, not even muttering under his breath like he usually does when he's stressed and when she's across the road and finally turns around to face him she can see that his face has gone incredibly pale.

He's also breathing way too fast.

In the past he's mentioned his panic attacks but because Oscorp is the place where he's always felt most comfortable, she hasn't seen him have one before. Now she's trying desperately to remember anything that can help her.

"Kev?" she calls, bracing her hands on his shoulders and trying to get him to look her in the eye. "You need to sit down, alright. Just sit down here."

She lowers herself to the dirty pavement, not worried about where she's sitting and more focused on helping Kev move with her. He does, but it's mostly because his eyes are frantically taking in everything that's happening and he doesn't have the brain capacity to think about one more thing.

"Deep breaths," Gwen says, even though the instruction sounds rather banal. "I need you to count, slowly, backwards from ten." It doesn't matter that she's getting these ideas from what she can remember of a television show she watched with Hunter a couple of nights ago.

Kev does this slowly, burying his head in his hands. She can see some people looking at him dodgy so she shoots them a couple of angry looks to get them to back off. They do so quickly, and Gwen rolls her eyes because really? There's an insane man dressed in green just dancing around midair and they're looking at their boss in the middle of a panic attack. (Priorities, people).

Despite how stressed out Kev is right now, Gwen has to turn around and see what's going on in the middle of the air.

Sure enough Oscorp has been hit a lot—but not to the extent of the other building. It looks like the injuries that Oscorp sustained were accidental—because the green man isn't really lucid or anything so he's just kind of flinging these explosives every which direction. It looks like the ones that hit their building were accidental—when his aim was off. The other building next to it is in flames and looks far more damages. It's a law firm, she reminds herself now that she can really see from the outside, but she knows for a fact that the owner of the firm has a lot of shares in the Oscorp productions.

There's no way to figure out how many people have died in this attack and how many more will if they all keep standing around near the bottom of the building. Smaller chunks of cement are crumbling already though, and everyone's seemingly figuring out that there's a good chance of being squashed where they are right now. The people in the gridlocked cars on the road have mostly left their cars behind, and are running down the street away from the commotion.

Gwen tugs urgently on Kev's arm. "We've got to move." She tells him, looking apologetic when she sees that he's still stressing pretty badly. "Come on."

He's happy to be moved and she pulls him along, further down the street and then turning into another block—where she can still see what's going on but hopefully far away enough that they won't get injured by debris.

Other people who are fleeing the scene stop to linger there as well, having the same idea.

She sits Kev down again on the edge of the sidewalk and is getting him to take deep breaths again when Spiderman makes his appearance.

There is no resentment when she sees him. It's an odd realisation, she thinks, because this is why he had to dump her and pretty much the cause of most of her pain for the last couple of months.

Peter swings down, his feet barely inches from the ground, and snatches a woman from where she was trapped, pulling her into the air with him and delivering him to safety.

Gwen thinks that if this is the reason Peter broke up with her, at least it's a good one. There are girls out there who've been dumped because they gained an extra ten pounds or because they're boobs aren't good enough anymore.

Gwen was dumped because Peter wanted to protect her from the enemies he would make while he saves the city.

So the only feeling she feels as she watches Peter rescue people, before swinging up higher to face the bad guy this time is an overwhelming sense of pride. He exchanges a few blows with the green man before he is thrown away—landing on the roof of the damaged building.

There's a horrific moment as the onlookers wait for him to reappear, followed by an immense, unified sense of relief when they spot his blue and red suit stand up again.

The green man has vanished now, with what looks like final words to Peter that get caught on the wind twenty stories high, and will remain secret to everyone who's watching. But the building is still slowly coming apart and there are a group of people caught up on one of the higher levels.

Watching Peter figure out how to handle this is just something else he does to impress her. In minutes, he's got four of the five down and is heading back up for the last person.

"_Gwen!" _

She jumps slightly at her name and spins around to see Hunter sprinting in her direction. He's swept her up in his arms before she can do anything about it, hugging her tightly to his large solid chest and breathing heavily into her shoulder. "Jesus, Gwen." He breathes to her neck. "I started running when I heard—I'm so glad you're alright."

It's good to have a solid body to hold right now, Gwen thinks and as she wraps her arms around him slowly she realises that Kevin isn't the only one shaking right now. Her phone is buzzing in her hand and she thinks she should probably call her mother again but for now she just hugs Hunter and lets the relief wash over her.

"I'm fine," she says to Hunter, convincing not just him but her as well. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

He nods and pulls back slightly. He runs a sweaty hand across her face (he's obviously run some way to get here, and his panting still hasn't subsided). His eyes scan her face for a couple of seconds and then he ducks in and presses his lips to hers.

It's weird, kissing someone who isn't Peter.

She's never done it before—Peter was her first kiss and her last, thus far—and she's not sure why she's been avoiding kissing Hunter but she realises pretty quickly that it's different. Not worse, but definitely not better. She knows her pulse is racing, but it's because of the stress, not because of the kiss.

But he's kissing her and she guesses this means he wants to date her and she's happy to date him right back, so she lifts a hand to the nape of his neck and holds him there for a moment before pulling back.

"Sorry," Hunter hastily says, still sounding breathless. "I didn't mean to—"

Gwen shakes her head, interrupting him. "No," she tells him quickly. "Don't apologise." And she smiles at him brightly, actually feeling the smile because it's nice to see someone who genuinely care about her, and his arms tighten slightly around her waist.

When she turns back to see what's still happening with the building, Peter is already swinging away from her.

.

Its reported as domestic terrorism and school is cancelled on Monday. In the end, the final count came out with fourteen dead, seventy six injured. He's calling himself the Green Goblin and he's about as smart as he is insane so his technology is way too advanced. Gwen doesn't know enough about the Oscorp developers but she's relatively sure that they're not manufacturing weapons. They'll leave that to Stark Industries.

Howard calls from campus. It's on the news—of course it is, it's being called _domestic terror_—and Gwen has to come to the phone herself to make sure he understands just how alright she is. She had to give a statement to the police about what she witnessed but Hunter stayed with her. Hunter managed to do a much better job of calming Kevin down, because one of the guys on the team has panic attacks before games sometimes.

But it s a special day off that Gwen is going to spend with her family, so she and her mother head down to the video store and she stays at home all day, Lou resting his head on her lap, sharing the couch with her mother while Phillip and Simon sat in the beanbags, and they watch movies. (Just light movies, like Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon, because those are the ones her brother's like and they require absolutely no hard thought to watch).

She absently texts Hunter during the morning and early afternoon but when the family starts getting to the old Disney films—her brother's really love the animal version of Robin Hood—she decides that this is the sort of moment she can share with her boyfriend, so she invites him over. When he arrives, she shuffles up the couch and he slips next to her and settles his arm over her shoulder.

While they watch and looks at her laptop where's it's balancing on Lou's back. She should use the extra time to finish off another assignment, this one a practical report for Chemistry, but she's not feeling it so she signs into Facebook so that she can IM Lucy. As it logs in, the film ends and Gwen takes stock of what's going on around her.

It's about six o'clock now, and Simon is snoozing slightly where he lies on the floor. Phillip is slowly moving, getting up, ready to change the disc again.

_Mary-Jane Watson wants to be your friend. _

_Accept/Decline. _

Gwen wonders what sort of deity it is that's getting all this joy out of making her life a cosmic joke and hopes that they're getting everything they want so that she's not suffering for absolutely no reason at all. Ordinarily, social networking sights don't cause her much hassle. She has a facebook page as a way of keeping in touch and because it's pretty much necessary in her age group. It doesn't cause her stress.

Now, though, Gwen is seriously conflicted. Because she doesn't want to reconnect with Mary Jane, no matter what the red headed girl feels. She wants to sit back and silently resent her as long as she likes. And she certainly doesn't want MJ to go around facebook friend-ing her.

It's with this reasoning that Gwen moves her mouse to the 'decline' option. She's about to click it and be done with it, when the television makes a sudden noise. Like most televisions, when the discs are out it turns back to the normal television until it's pushed back in again.

And this time the television is showing them a breaking news broadcast.

The Green Goblin is back and currently fighting Peter Parker near Brooklyn. (Well, Spiderman, but the difference doesn't matter to Gwen).

It's an interrupted broadcast. Because they're bringing breaking news, a live feed from a helicopter camera that's struggling to follow Spiderman's movements as he swings through the air is all that they have to see. She's getting a good look at the Green Goblin now and there's a smile on his face—a mask, Gwen hopes because—it's terrifying.

"What the _hell _is that?" Hunter demands, looking at her frantically. "Is that what attacked Oscorp?" '

It attacked another building but Gwen can't be bothered to correct him right now. There are more important things to focus on. She's sitting up, straight—and she did it so quickly that it immediately roused Lou from where he was resting on her lap. He's looking around suspiciously now, as though he's trying to figure out what it is that has her attention so riveted.

He's not just happy with those small explosives now, Gwen notices. The hover board that he's flying on is shooting spikes at Peter—Spiderman, whatever—that he is only just managing to avoid. The room is suddenly silent—and everyone is as attentive as Gwen is. She knows she probably should be thinking about if she looks too obvious right now, but she doesn't care at this point—because one of the spikes almost just skewered Peter through the stomach.

She watches the speed that Peter's moving with and the direction of the spikes and the explosives that Peter's also dodging. Peter is distracted and not thinking about all the things he has to deal with—mostly because there are too many things happening right now for him to be able to focus on them all. It means he doesn't think his next move through—but Gwen does and she knows what's going to happen.

She lets out a mute scream that drowns out the unprofessional yet similar noises that the reporters make at the same time. The camera is close enough to pick up on the shout of pain as the sharp point catches Peter's thigh and the blood that spurts from the wound is vivid and horrifying.

Helen jumps into action and hastily moves, pulling her two sons from the room. She looks for Gwen's help where Simon is desperately trying to keep watching, and Gwen gets up.

There's a weird level of panic settling over her now and she doesn't really know how to react. She would have thought she would be worrying more, screaming or shouting or crying even, and while her heart is thumping a mile a minute she's managing to take deep breaths.

She helps lead Simon out and into the room he shares with Phillip before turning to her mother.

"I need you to ask Hunter to leave." She says, looking at her mother and trying to convey how deadly serious she is. How is she calm? A part of her demands. How the hell is she not curling up into the foetal position and crying right now?

Her mother likes Hunter, she thinks he's nice and he's respectable and a good match for Gwen. But she's always been very clear with her daughter. If Gwen should ever, in any situation, feel uncomfortable with him being here, all she needs to do is ask her mother to play the bad guy. Helen will and always, she promises, be on her daughter's side.

So she kicks into gear and nods her head resolutely. She heads down the hall and smiles kindly at Hunter, where he's started to clean up the bean bags that her brother's had been lounging on.

"Oh, thank you for that," Helen says smiling at the gesture. Just because she's going to do this for Gwen doesn't mean she's going to be unpleasant about it. "I think it's probably time to leave now, Hunter." Helen continues. "It's getting late and school is on again tomorrow."

Gwen's heart won't stop thrumming and Gwen can feel her hands beginning to shake. Whatever part of her it was that had managed to keep her calm is fighting a losing battle she realises.

Hunter, who is a good guy in every single circumstance that Gwen has ever seen, just smiles and nods. He walks over to Gwen and kisses her sweetly, promising to see her tomorrow at school. He grabs his jacket and leaves quickly, probably because he wants to find out what's just happened to Spiderman.

Gwen glances back at the television. Peter is still fighting, but he's limping. Because of the pain in his leg, he's using his web more—and it's a severe disadvantage.

Another spike gets him in the shoulder, just inches from his neck. Then another skins his abdomen. He's losing, and the Green Goblin is cackling and Gwen is seconds away from completely losing it.

Every single person who is watching the news at that moment has time to watch as Spiderman fumbles, slips on a building and see the start of his fall when a spike swerves and heads straight for the camera.

Then the newsfeed cuts out.

.

**A/N: **Not very much Peter in this chapter, but I'll make up for his absence next chapter :) Please review guys. I'd love some real feedback. Tell what you don't like even :P


	6. five

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything that you recognise. All rights go to the respective owners.

**A/N: **Fantastic response to the last chapter, thank you all. I hope this next one lives up to expectations.

.

The first thing Gwen does is head to her room. Her mother is watching her with wide eyes, worrying at her lower lip but Gwen manages to keep a solid thought through her head and she knows exactly what she needs to do. With each deep breath she tries not to focus on how fast her heart is beating. Her hands are shaking as she digs into her desk and pulls out the fluffy pink book that contained all her secrets from middle school.

Sure enough, on the inside of the front cover, in curly oppressive handwriting is a phone number. As she pulls her cell phone from her back pocket, her fingers are shaking. It takes her two tries to get the number in right and that only frustrates her further because she doesn't have time for this.

She manages to wait for the three rings of the phone without screaming in frustration, but it's a battle sorely won.

She doesn't have the patience to deal with niceties, so she doesn't wait for the answering: 'hello'.

Instead, she talks as soon as the phone is picked up. (By the way, thank god she still has the same number she did in middle school). "MJ."

"Uh.. yeah?" On the other end of the phone, MJ sounds confused. But she didn't sound stressed or worried, and Gwen's heart sunk.

"This is Gwen Stacy," Gwen gets out, as calmly as she can manage.

"Gwen?" MJ says, sounding surprised. "Wow, how are you? I don't think we've talked since last year."

Yeah. Really not the time for small talk. She gets straight to the point because she's not sure if there's time to be slow about it. She can't be subtle or wait to figure out exactly how she's going to convince MJ it's alright to talk to her so she just goes for it. Blunt is the only thing that seems plausible at this point.

"I need to know if you know, MJ." Gwen says. "Now is not the time to keep secrets. If you know what I'm talking about, you'll just now. So tell me."

There's a pause on the end of the line.

"Gwen, I have no idea what you're talking about." MJ sounds confused and a little peeved, and that's all Gwen needs to know. She hangs up. (And yeah, she'll probably pay for that sometime in the future but she can't think about that right now).

She doesn't bother calling Harry because even if he does know, she was in the first aid course with him and she watched him practically murder the practice dummy. Instead, she grabs her coat, her family's first aid kit and she dials Hunter's number.

While the phone is ringing she bids goodbye to her mother and claims that Luce needs to talk to her about boy trouble. It's enough of an explanation that it also explains why she asked to send Hunter away and her mother doesn't seem to mind. She's just got to the elevator when Hunter picks up.

"Hey," he says, and he sounds confused.

"Hey," Gwen says. She's aware that she sounds breathless, but hopefully he won't quite notice it, or would at least attribute it to the violent pictures she'd just seen on screen. "Sorry my mum sent you home."

Obviously, she's not. But Hunter doesn't pick up on the lie.

"Don't worry about it. Did you see what happened to Spiderman?"

Well, Gwen thinks quickly. That was easier than she'd anticipated. There's not much to do in the elevator other than talk, so she's shifting her weight nervously from foot to foot. She's still shaking slightly but she tries to ignore it.

"No," she says. "The television cut out. What happened?"

"There was another chopper showing it at the seven eleven." Hunter explains. "I'm there now. Spiderman's gone."

There's this moment when Gwen's heart actually feels like it's stopped. If her heart doesn't actually stop beating, her breathing certainly halts and it feels like her lungs have dropped through her body. She can't really make that information compute in her brain, there's nothing in her head that will accept a world where Peter Parker doesn't exist.

It's not the sort of reaction she can hide, even over the phone, and Hunter picks up on it.

"Oh, Jesus—no. He's fine. He shot the green guy and then he swung away. The green guy hung around to laugh about him being a coward for a bit, but now the reporters are just interviewing the witnesses."

The relief that hits Gwen in the next second is about as large as the horror from the last second. It's a physical moment where her shoulders feel lighter and she lets out a shuddering breath.

"Whoa—hey, Gwen, I didn't know you even cared about Spiderman."

Gwen lets out a breathless laugh, because Hunter really has absolutely no idea, but it's a good feeling because it only emphasises the relief. Peter is alive. As far as she knows now, he's back in Queens and he's trying stupidly to fix himself.

"I've gotta go," she says in the end. "I just wanted to say sorry about earlier."

The elevator pings and the doors slide open. It's raining outside—which is a surprise because despite the clouds it hadn't been raining when she'd been watching the television. She pulls her coat on, reshuffling her bag with the first aid kit inside and heads out of the front of her building. Her doorman looks at her like she's inside as she steps into the soft rain.

"That's fine, babe. See you tomorrow." Hunter hangs up before Gwen and just as a taxi pulls over to help her out of the rain. It's one of those lovely things about being a woman in New York—the taxis always go for you first.

She slips inside and gives the driver the address from memory.

And then, of course, it's a twenty minute drive to Peter's small house in Queens and the entire time her knee is bumping up and down while she nervously fidgets her fingers. By the time that the taxi does pull up in front of _that _porch it's raining twice as hard and Gwen's pretty much worked herself into a hot mess.

She pays the cab driver (and gives him a tip too big because she doesn't hang around to wait for change) and runs up the steps. Her fringe sticks to her forehead from the wet and she's feeling the chill from the freezing rain but she doesn't let that stop her.

She walks up to the front door, hears the sounds of the taxi pulling away and knocks on the door.

She then has to wait a couple of minutes for any sort of reasonable response. Nothing. Look, she obviously hadn't been expecting Peter to bound to the door enthusiastically with a wide smile and a warm embrace—but she'd at least hoped that his Aunt would let her in. She doesn't waste her time worrying about the trivial thoughts that occur to her (like maybe MJ has been spreading lies about her in the house so that Peter's Aunt will like her more, or maybe Peter lied and told everyone that she dumped him) and instead moves to the more dramatic (like, he's died while swinging his way home, or he bled out in his bedroom and his aunt is asleep and has no idea).

She doesn't hesitate.

"PETER PARKER!" she shouts at the door. "YOU OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW, I SWEAR TO GOD."

She waits another couple of seconds. A dog starts barking from one of the houses across the street, and she can see someone looking at her through a curtain of another house, trying to figure out who's making all the noise. There are no stirrings in the Parker household.

"PETER!" she shouts again. "NOW PETER. YOU KNOW I'LL KNOCK DOWN THE DOOR IF I HAVE TO."

And she's ready to. She's already got her scarf wrapped around her fist, trying to figure out the best place for her to punch the glass so that it shatters properly when the light of the foyer flips on. It's about that same time that the front door of the house next door opens and a bewildered Mary Jane steps out.

"Gwen? What are you—?"

Gwen ignores the redhead in favour of focusing on Peter. He looks terrible—his left eye is swollen and there is blood coming from his mouth—not a split lip or anything but like he's been coughing it up—and he's supporting himself heavily on the wall so he doesn't have to put any pressure on his injured leg.

"Sorry, MJ." She says immediately, not looking away from Peter. He's holding her gaze like he has no idea what to do with it and she's in about the same way. Jesus Christ, why didn't he tell MJ about this? She could have done this for him.

But MJ doesn't know, and Gwen knows this because Gwen checked. For the moment, Gwen can tell from a momentary glance, MJ is looking at her like she's some sort of insane woman.

Peter hobbles to the door and turns the light off again, obviously because he doesn't want MJ to see him looking like this. When he does open the door, all MJ (and Gwen, for that matter) can see is the outline of his face and his ridiculous soft hair.

Gwen doesn't say anything to him. Just watches the outline of his face and tries not to worry about herself in a moment like this. She shifts all that nervousness to him and his welfare.

MJ's gaze flicks back and forth between Gwen and Peter for a second. "Uhm, Peter, what are you—?"

"I'll see you tomorrow, MJ." Peter says. His voice is raspy, like he's been trying to sleep, but just barely so Gwen hopes that means he failed. Any more attempts to sleep would probably send him to the emergency room and he can't have that.

Then he reaches forward and gently rests his hand on Gwen's shoulder, pulling her inside. It's the first time he's touched her since the high school, when he held her tight for a moment against his spandex suit and then threw her out the window. It sends shivers down her spine and there's a warmth with his touch that sets her whole body on edge.

She doesn't spare MJ a second glance as she steps inside and closes the door behind him. Immediately, he slumps against the wall, exhausted, and she moves to him. "Where does it hurt?" she demands, clinically—safe.

He groans and his arms moves in a pathetic gesture that indicates pretty much everywhere. She's pretty sure that that was his point as well, and she doesn't question it.

"You should be lying down." She says.

"I was. Then you decided to attack my home."

She ignores that. "Where's your aunt?"

"She has a craft group. She'll be back around one."

Gwen consults her watch. That gives her three hours of looking after him without his aunt around, and, if it's required and if she can keep quiet enough, more hours of looking after him with his aunt around. She moves as quickly as she can, coming to the side of his injured leg and gingerly touching his arm.

He flinches, but doesn't pull away, so Gwen continues. She lifts his arm—it must be hurt as well because he lets out an answering groan of pain—and hooks it over her shoulders. She brings her arm around his waist, trying to avoid all the parts that look the worst, and pulls slightly, lifting some of his weight on to her.

It strikes her that they've only been this close while dating, and the realisation sends another shiver through her. She scowls and scolds her hormones for their unfaithful bad timing. She has Hunter for them now. Peter is just a friend who she knows needs help.

"Come on," she leads him, gripping the wrist over her shoulder tightly. "We need to get you back to your room."

He doesn't protest with words at all. He seems to understand exactly what she's saying (come on, there's a reason that the two of them are currently fighting for the best student position in most of their classes), but his body doesn't. With every step he groans a little, and Gwen manages to ignore most of them. It's when the whimpering starts that it really pulls at Gwen's heart—ahem—conscience. He's trying to keep the noises in but failing to do so. They're soft noises that cut Gwen to pieces. She tries to talk over them. "Shh, shush, shush, shush, shhh. Come on. Come on, please, shh, come on."

He's leaning heavily on her. There's not much she can do other than steel her shoulders and bring her other hand up to his chest, making sure he doesn't fall forward. He's keeling over a bit, his head buried in the crook of her neck, and she can feel his hot breath on her skin. It's sending goose bumps all over her and she hopes that he's in too much pain to notice.

Then she realises that that's a horrible thing to wish on someone and she pushes it from her mind.

She instead focuses on the injuries that she's already witnessed. There was the spike to the leg, that spurted blood everywhere and the hit to the shoulder and the shot that had skimmed across and cut through the skin of this abdomen. As they struggle up the steps, Gwen tries to distract him.

"Are there any others?" she asks, after she tells him what she already knows. "Ones that I'll need to know about?"

They get up another step. Gwen has to move her hand from his chest to the banister of the stair case so they both don't go toppling backwards. It's helpful in that case but Peter puts more weight on her shoulders then and she feels the strain.

He manages to get out a muffled moan, and then shakes his head. "I, I sprained my ankle I think. But it's fine." He says, is spite of his head movement.

When she finally gets them both up the stairs, Gwen's mind is racing trying to recall all the information that Gwen's learnt over the years about first aid. The problem with the first aid courses for teenagers these days was that they mostly covered what to do when you found a friend unconscious because of alcohol or how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre. There was nothing in the classes about helping your masked vigilante ex-boyfriend with stab wounds from a crazy man on a hover board, dressed in green.

She helps him lie gently on his bed, easing away from him and his injured shoulder. He groans as he rolls onto his back and his eye's flutter close for a moment but Gwen is already moving him again. "Sit up." She says immediately. "And don't you dare close your eyes."

He's too tired to argue, but he's also too tired to really do anything she asks so she ends up crawling onto the bed beside him and pulling him into an upwards position. She sits at her side, her legs open and her left knee cradling his back, keeping him sitting up. She removes his shirt as delicately as she can, but he keeps wincing and gasping at the pain.

It's a reaction, at least, she tells herself. It means he's not unconscious.

He's tried to bandage himself as best as he could, she realises. They're badly wrapped and probably not clean at all, and his blood has mostly soaked through. She reaches down to her first aid bag and pulls on her gloves—just like her course had told her to, so she lessened the chance of giving him an infection.

She slowly pulls the bandages off, again trying not to focus too much on Peter's reactions of pain by reminding herself that it means he's here, he's still alive, he can still feel this.

When she sees the extent of his wounds, she has to pause for a moment so that she doesn't throw up. His skin is open, gaping and she can see the red of his flesh. It's dribbling blood now, slow and deadly, and his chest is getting paler and paler. He has one giant gash across his stomach—and a gaping hole at his shoulder. She hasn't even looked at his leg yet.

His _leg. _It's with wide eyes that Gwen realises that that is probably the wound she should be addressing first. She saw the cut of his skin and the blood that had spurted from the wound when it had occurred. He's managed to pull the suit off, but she's willing to bet that the suit's in a bad condition as well. He's wrapped his leg as well, but it's about the same standard as his other attempts, and it is bleeding into his pyjama pants.

She reaches into her kit again and pulls out some gauze. She spreads it softly, but thickly, over the wound on Peter's stomach because that is the one that's bleeding worse. He only has the use of one good arm so he can put pressure on both wounds. The hole at his shoulder looks less drastic, so she just settles some more gauze over that, clumsily taping it down.

She grabs Peter's good hand and brings it to the gauze. "You need to apply pressure." She says immediately. "Peter. Look at me. Do you understand?"

His eyes roam her face for a moment and she says his name again. He snaps out of his moment and nods his head, and she can feel it when he starts to press down on the wound at his abdomen. He winces again, and lets out a small moan.

Gwen doesn't feel remotely awkward about shuffling down the bed. Peter's torso waves slightly, but he manages to keep himself sitting in an upright position. Her fingers grasp at his waist band and yank, roughly—because there's no way that he can lift his hips for her. She manages to get his pants down after a couple of tries, and she's more careful as she pulls the wet cotton away from where it's soaked to the blood soaked bandage. She discards his pants over her shoulder, before moving to the bandage. It's his upper thigh, which means that he'll be okay if it hasn't hit a major blood vessel. She remembers that much (not from the class this time, but from all the Grey's Anatomy she's watched with her mother). If it's missed the vessel, then all that's left to hit is muscle, which should grow back as scar tissue.

(If it has hit the vessel though, there's a good chance he'll bleed out before she can get the sterilised bandage on as a replacement).

She can't tell from the amount of blood that's soaked through the bandage, but even with the dirty cloth on this leg, the blood flow hasn't really stopped. She decides that he'll bleed out either way if she doesn't get a substantial dressing on the wound, so she gingerly begins to unwrap that bandage. She angles his leg up, even though he lets out a muted cry of pain, and gets it off fast.

She lets out a little noise herself when she realises that it's not bleeding too much. Well, not as much as a broken artery would suggest. She's been told to expect spurting blood, that gets and goes everywhere, too quick to control. What she finds is the same sort of leaking blood, and she is able to wash the wound and wrap it, putting pressure on it herself before leaning back.

There's blood all over her clothes. She's going to have to change before she goes home, otherwise her mother is going to have a fit. She didn't bring spare clothes, but maybe Peter's Aunt has a shirt and pants that she could borrow.

The piles of Peter's useless bandages lie in the corner. She's managed to throw them onto his desk, so there's no blood ruining his carpet. It's just on his keyboard (which is probably more annoying, but easily replaceable). Her heart is hammering in her chest and as soon as Gwen notices it, everything hits her.

The unresponsive calm that she'd managed to hold on to until now vanishes, and she realises that there are tear's on her cheeks. She fights to control her breathing, taking deep breaths and trying not to freak out too much that this really just happened.

She feels a delicate hand go through her hair, wet with blood but she doesn't care.

"Hey," Peter's voice is weak. "Aren't I the damsel in distress here?"

She lets out a dry, hollow laugh of relief, because he's joking and he's alive and he hasn't bled to death because of her terrible ability to give first aid. She also really wants to hit him—but he looks like shit and she's not going to put him in any more pain. (She can't bear the thought of that).

She looks up to catch his eye just in time to see that he's leaning back slightly, his torso wavering as his eyes flutter close.

She inhales sharply.

"Peter." She says loudly. "Don't you dare go to sleep. Don't you dare."

His eyes snap back open, but it looks exhausting. In fact, there's nothing much that Gwen would like more than to just lie down, on that blood soaked bed and sleep and pretend that this didn't happen.

But she can't because she won't risk Peter not waking up again.

"Sorry," Peter says drowsily.

Gwen keeps watching him. "You have to stay awake." She orders. "You _have _to."

Peter nods his head, as though he understands, but his eyes are dangerously close to close again. He's managed to keep himself sitting upright though, and he's still keeping pressure on his chest. "I, uh—I, uh, will."

"Talk to me." Gwen orders.

She leans back slightly, figuring that she'll stay awake if she's distracted by more work and Peter's voice. She takes one hand away from his leg and finds the medical tape, where she presses the gauze more firmly to his leg and tapes down. Then she finds one of her brand new, unopened bandages and begins to softly wrap it around his leg.

Peter's not talking. He's falling asleep again.

This time she does nudge him, although she's careful not to get anywhere that looks too tender. He winces, but not too badly, and he ends up opening his eyes again. This time, she doesn't even need to say it.

"Sorry," he manages to get out.

Gwen moves, shifting again and ignoring the wet feeling of Peter's blood on the cotton of his sheets under her knees, and leans forward. She gingerly moves his hand, keeps the pressure there, and pulls him forward again. She grabs one of the larger bandages that she brought with her, gets rid of the plastic wrapping and leans forward again. Wrapping it around his torso is almost like hugging him, and he's still enough that she knows she has his attention now.

"Talk to me," she says again, this time softly because her mouth is right next to his ear. He's breathing on her neck again and this time she knows the goose bumps are more obvious. She forces herself not to feel embarrassed and focuses on her task.

"What about?" Peter breathes back.

Gwen shrugs, because she has absolutely no idea. "Think of something," she tells him.

There's a pause.

"What did you think of the calc assignment?"

Gwen lets out another breathless little laugh, more shaky because she's so close to him. Of course he's going to talk about their homework. She scoffs a little at the thought. No. He _cannot_ talk about their homework.

"Peter," she chides quietly.

Peter, if possible, goes even more still in her arms. She thinks it's maybe because he's holding his breath.

"Who was he?" Gwen asks. "The man on the hover board?"

Peter shakes his head, looking confused because it looks like he has no idea. "I don't—" he starts, like he's trying to figure out exactly where to begin explaining what he does know. "I—let's not talk about that."

He pauses. Gwen thinks about asking what he wants to talk about instead, because they have to talk about something—they have to keep Peter awake and at this point, she'll take anything, anything that he wants to talk about.

"Are you in love with Hunter Cook?"

Okay, Gwen thinks as she freezes. Maybe she kind of asked for that one. That still didn't make it any easier question to ask.

"Peter." She says softly. She's finished with the bandages now, but she's still got her arms around him, pressing lightly on the bandage, holding it in place even though it's pinned now.

At hearing his name, he brings up a hand, delicate, soft, and rests it on her shoulder, before he presses his forehead against her neck. "It's okay if you are," he says quickly, his hair tickling at her neck. "I mean, I deserve it—I mean, you deserve it, you, you—you deserve someone to make you happy."

He's kind of babbling but the words are making Gwen's stomach churn. She doesn't know what to do with those words, with his words. Because she may know that she doesn't love Hunter now, but there's always a chance that she could—and even if there wasn't it's none of Peter's business. No matter what Peter said.

She says his name again and starts to pull away.

His hand tightens reflexively on her shoulder for a moment, before he exhales sharply, his soft breath rushing out at her collar bone.

"Sorry, I'm sorry." He says quickly. "Sorry."

He twists his head a bit, like he knows he should pull away from her but he doesn't want to. She doesn't know why that is, because he's been more than clear about his affections for her until this point, and this is confusing.

But he's breathing more quickly now, and he's fidgeting slightly, even in her arms. She's half away from him now, not really sure what to do with herself, and she can tell that her move is stressing him out.

She doesn't really think about it at all then. She pulls him back into her arms and this time she's not just wrapping him in a bandage, she's wrapping her arms around him and holding on as delicately as she can while still really holding him.

He shudders out a breath.

He brings his other arm—the one attached to his injured shoulder, around her waist and pulls her closer to him. She can suddenly smell everything about him that she remembered she loved and she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to block it all out.

"Do you though?" Peter's voice is really small now. "Love him, I mean? I saw you kissing him yesterday."

Gwen can't believe it was yesterday that she was fleeing the Oscorp building and kissing Hunter for the first time. (Technically, though, she thinks it's almost the day before yesterday because it's pretty much midnight at this point. Alright. Eleven. But that's close enough).

She tightens her hold around him. With him this close, she can feel his heart pounding in his chest. It's fast, too fast, and she's worried about him. Worried about that. Worried that he might be getting this worked up because she might love Hunter Cook.

She leans back and he holds her frantically for another second before releasing her. When she tries to look at his face, she sees him avoiding her gaze, staring down at the ruined bed.

"Peter." She says seriously, and his name is kind of like a prayer she sounds so serious. "Look at me." She reaches out and cups a hand under his jaw, pulling upwards until his eyes are looking right at hers. "No." She says. "I don't love Hunter."

There's a pause in the air after she speaks and then Peter's eyes are closing in something so close to sheer relief that Gwen wants to look away. He can't feel those things about that—not anymore, not since he made the decision not to care.

So she pulls him back into a hug and holds his head to her neck, finding his presence there reassuring—the only thing keeping her grounded in this dark room.

"Now," she says, and her voice only shakes a little. "Can we please talk about something else?"

.

They end up staying up all through the night. Despite her own tiredness, she refuses to take the risk of letting Peter fall asleep. She only leaves his side for a couple of minutes at around midnight, ducking downstairs to make sure that Peter's Aunt won't have a heart attack coming home and seeing blood on the floor. She uses the dirty bandages to wipe up the few smears of blood on the walls from their walk upstairs, and after a couple of minutes of attention, everything looks perfectly normal. She ruffles through the kitchen for a moment, grabbing some milk, a garbage can and some leftover food in the fridge before racing back upstairs. Peter is awake, but only because he's made himself stand up. He's at his desk, using tissues to wipe up the blood that's pooled on his keyboard. When she sees him he gives her a look, and she knows that it's probably a lost cause at this point.

She shrugs, because what else can she do? They stow the ruined bandages and sheets in the garbage bag that they brought, and then Gwen asks Peter to eat some of the food that she brought up. She wasn't sure whether or not to expect a struggle, so she's glad when Peter takes the milk gratefully and starts chugging directly from the bottle. Together, they get through about half of the cold meatloaf, and a lot of the colour returns to Peter's cheeks.

They discuss school mostly, staying away from the delicate subjects like Hunter or MJ. They don't hug anymore, but Gwen sits at Peter's side, watching the wounds for a while and when she realises that they're holding hands she doesn't have it in her to complain.

After they've eaten, they get up again to fix the bed. The sheets are about as ruined as the bandages, but when they pull them up Gwen is impressed and horrified to see that there's some plastic folded underneath to protect the mattress. When she shoots a look at Peter, he looks a little guilty.

"I've gone to sleep bleeding before," he says casually, like it's no big deal, scratching at the back of his neck and avoiding her gaze.

(It's about as much as she'd guessed but having it confirmed makes her feel like she wants to throw up).

Aunt May does get home at about one o'clock but it's easy enough to whisper to Peter to keep him awake. He seems more alert now, less delirious, which is a good sign. Hopefully that means that Gwen hasn't inadvertently killed him or anything.

Gwen worries for a moment that Peter's Aunt is going to come in and find her there, which—even with the blood cleaned up and gone—is still something that would be embarrassing to explain, but it's not a problem. Aunt May doesn't come in to see if Peter's awake when she gets home because it's so late, and when the light does start to filter in and she comes to wake Peter up, Gwen just hides in the closet.

Peter does his convincing 'I'm terribly sick' routine, which is only made more effective by the fact that he's still pretty pale and sweaty. Aunt May doesn't take much convincing, and even offers to stay home to look after him, but Peter hastily promises her that that's not necessary.

They stay upstairs, quiet, while Aunt May hustles around downstairs and gets ready to work. It's only once she's gone and the front door has closed behind her that Gwen feels comfortable talking at a normal level again.

Peter looks exhausted, but far better than he had looked, and the bleeding hasn't come through the bandages nearly as much as Gwen thought they would.

"I heal fast," Peter says, by way of explanation. "I was hoping it would work faster, but apparently there are some limits."

Gwen regards him with a sarcastic look.

But sure enough, when she takes the gauze away from the wound on his shoulder the skin is already puckering slightly, pulling together and righting itself. She doesn't dare to hope but when she checks she finds that Peter's stomach, and more importantly, his leg are at about the same levels of repair.

"Alright," she cautiously allows. "You should shower." She tells him. "I'll put new stuff on your injuries, and then you can sleep."

Peter looks at her like she's just told him that Christmas has come early or something, and she rolls her eyes at that. (But she can't quite hide the fond smile that works its way onto her traitorous face).

Peter vanishes into the bathroom, with a shy smile. Endeavouring for this not to be one of those cliché awkward moments in those terribly teenage rom-coms, Gwen busies herself digging through one of Peter's cupboards and finally coming up with a grey t-shirt and some track pants that she can change into.

Peter comes out of the bathroom in some new pyjamas (which for him are just some grey sweatpants and a white shirt) and the old ones go into the bag of garbage. Gwen sits him down on the bed and demands clinically that he take his pants off. She rewraps his leg, pauses so that he can put his trousers back on, and then gets to work on his chest. Once that's done, Gwen puts the now useless bandages in the garbage bag, and strolls into the bathroom like it's nothing, keen to start washing Peter's blood out of her hair.

When she leaves the bathroom, feeling warm, lighter and considerably less stressed, and wearing Peter's tracksuit and shirt combo (which does _not _smell like him, no way, and even if it does it's not a smell that Gwen can recognise because she _doesn't care_), Peter is asleep on his bed. He doesn't look too comfortable. Like he'd been sitting up with his head on the headboard, waiting for her to finish, when he'd just passed out from the exhaustion.

She checks his forehead to make sure he's fine, then his pulse. She moves to the bottom of the bed and yanks on his feet as gently as she can (which is counterproductive, but eventually works), so that he's actually lying on the mattress now, not injuring his neck. She thinks for a moment about just giving up and joining him there, falling asleep and just letting her worries roll away.

And then she hastily shakes her head, and takes a step back.

Instead, she calls a taxi to Peter's address with her cell phone, repacks her things and leaves—throwing the bloodied sheets and her ruined clothes into the bin on her way out.

.

**a/n: **I have a cold that can only have been created by Lucifer himself, so I'm sorry if there are any typos or spelling mistakes in here that I missed. Feel free to let me know if you spot any, and I'll fix them as soon as possible.

Please review. :D

(**edited: **7 October 2012): thanks to skinny love for pointing out the hilarious 'shit/shirt' typo. Fixed now :P


	7. six

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything that you recognise. All rights go to the respective owners.

**A/N: **thanks for all the reviews for last chapter. Can we try again for this one?

.

By the time that Gwen gets to school, she's pretty wrecked. She'd left Peter's pretty early, managed to get home by about seven thirty and change her clothes. But she can tell she's got bags under her eyes and her hair isn't quite as put together as she would have liked. She's feeling tired and stressed and she only just makes it to first period before the bell rings. Her teacher gives her a look, as though he never thought he'd see the day when Gwen Stacy was almost tardy, and looked pointedly at her chair. She doesn't have this class with Hunter, so she doesn't have to answer any questions he might have about her drastic appearance, but she does have to face Lucy and Jess, who are watching her with bright, scandalised grins.

When the teacher finishes his read through of the morning announcements, he sets them all work to do, and the class starts to warm up with the sound of chatter.

Lucy's shit eating grin makes Gwen shift slightly in her seat.

"Your mom called me last night."

Gwen felt her stomach sink. She'd managed to avoid seeing her mother that morning. Her brothers like to be at school early and it's easier for them to be dropped off so they're usually out of the house pretty early. Gwen had just thanked the lord for small mercies when she'd arrived home to an empty house.

Of course her mother must have wanted to know where she was the night before. It occurs to Gwen that she was so caught up in helping Peter that she didn't text her mother to calm her mind, or even Lucy to say that she needed an alibi for tonight.

Gwen's thoughts must at least show a little on her face because Lucy makes this odd scoffing noise like Gwen has accused her out loud. "Dude," she says, leaning back and pretending to buff her nails on her shirt. "Of course I covered for you. What do you think I am?"

Gwen lets out a sigh of relief and smiles fondly at Lucy.

"I should have texted you and let you know." Gwen says, an apology mixed into those words somewhere.

Lucy shrugs off her words with an audible scoff and rolls her eyes. She scoots a little closer as she leans across her desk. "Don't even worry about it. You were _busy._"

She gives meaning to the word busy—so much so that Gwen looks up at her alarmed. There's no way that Lucy knows what she was actually doing last night, but she obviously thinks that something was happening. Gwen only gets more confused when Lucy winks at her.

"So?" she keeps on talking. "How was it?"

Gwen has absolutely no idea what she's talking about. She opens and closes her mouth for a second, looking a mix between bewildered and amused as she looks to Jess. Jess has the same grin on her face, maybe a little more reserved and quite. She's blushing as well, and glancing around at the other students every couple of seconds.

She's not going to be any help figuring out what Lucy's on about, so Gwen just goes for it. "What?" she asks, with a confused laugh.

Lucy rolls her eyes again. "Don't even start with me, dude. I want details. _Explicit details._"

Gwen is saved the trouble of figuring out exactly what _that _means by Jess's indignant gasp. She leans forward, crowding over Gwen's desk and looking scandalised. "Lucy. We're in a classroom. Are you sure this is the best time to—?"

"Can it, Chambers." Lucy snaps. (She slips into the last name mode whenever she's feeling particularly aggressive. Gwen leans back slightly and Lucy begins to glower at her). "Spill it, Stacy."

Gwen looks, still confused, from Jess and Lucy again. "I don't—"

"Gwen," Jess says, dropping a hand over Gwen's on the table (she even strokes a thumb across the back of her hand), "you don't have to tell us anything you don't want to." She raises her voice slightly, getting louder for a moment as Lucy lets out a couch of protest, and then keeps talking. "As long as he didn't pressure you. I know you haven't been dating him for very long."

Lucy breaks in. "She's seventeen. She should live a little."

And because Gwen's a logical thinker and she's finally got some context for this conversation now (the mentions of him, the night that she spent away from home and lying about staying at Lucy's) she can quickly figure out exactly what her friends are talking about.

She reels back, letting out a noise of offended shock that she just manages to keep quiet. She stares at them both.

"You think that Hunter and I had _sex?_" she demands.

Of course, at that point, Gwen had leant in hastily her voice dropping to a hissed whisper as she verifies her conclusion. Now Jess is the one of the three of them looking confused. Lucy just sucks thoughtfully on the end of her pen.

"Uh, _duh._" She says. "Where else would you have been?"

And, okay, this is now a problem. Because Gwen can't exactly tell them that she wasn't at Hunter's, because that's a giant can of worms that she doesn't want to open. She'll have to then explain where she actually was, and why and those are some secrets she's not allowed to share.

But still.

"We've only been dating for a month!" Gwen says. Lucy doesn't say anything which seems to indicate that she doesn't understand Gwen's point. "Jesus," Gwen says now. "Seriously?"

Jess shrugs, and has the decency to look a little ashamed of her assumption. Her cheeks colour slightly as she says, "sorry Gwen, but you stayed at his house all night. What were we supposed to think?"

Making a note to very definitely text Hunter about this, or tell him in the halls and she shrugs a little. "That I was spending a night getting to know my boyfriend better?"

Lucy grins wolfishly. "I bet you were."

Both Jess and Gwen throw her a perfectly in unison glare. She just grins some more and Gwen rolls her eyes. "_No._" She says pointedly. "I just, we hung out at his place last night and watched some movies. By the time we realised what time it was, Hunter didn't want me to be out that late."

Jess responds with a look that clearly conveys how romantic she thinks that is, even though Gwen thought she was painting Hunter in a kind of chauvinistic light. Lucy runs her tongue across her teeth and flashes Gwen some more of her grin.

"Why were you distracted, Gwen?" she asks, her eyebrows high like she's actually interested in hearing the answer. "Were you too focused in other activities?"

Gwen narrows a glare at her.

"Yes, actually," she says, her voice steely. "The movies we watched were very interesting."

"Sounds _enjoyable._"

Gwen doesn't drop the glare. "They were, _actually._" She says. "Shrek is a very fascinating story that stresses to the audience that anyone anywhere can find love, which I believe is a very good message to be sending to the youth of today especially when everywhere they look, all they're seeing are beautiful celebrities and models. Influences like that can be really damaging, especially at a time like this when self-esteem is so important to the growth of identity and—"

Lucy lets out a groan, unable to endure anymore. She drops her head into her hands.

"God, Stacy, you're such a _bore._" Her voice is muffled by her arms, and she's talking into the desk, but the words come across (just barely) and Gwen smiles triumphantly. (Whenever she goes into what Lucy calls 'analytical mode' Lucy is pretty much done with the conversation).

But in response to Lucy's words, Gwen raises an empirical eyebrow.

"No," she says evenly. "I like to take things slow. Some people like taking things slow."

Jess shrugs. "You didn't take things slow with Pe—"

There's a moment of silence.

Lucy lifts her head from the desk.

Gwen swallows.

Jess blinks frantically for a second, not sure at all where to go with that mistake. They'd taken to not mentioning Peter to Gwen at all, mostly because the first couple of times they did mention him, Gwen was still raw from the pain of losing her father and her boss and her boyfriend in one fell swoop and she'd been reduced to tears a couple of times.

"Uh..." Jess flounders brilliantly.

Gwen leans back. "It's fine." She says. "It's fine, it's been long enough that you can talk about him."

The whole tone of the conversation has shifted now, and it's not playful and indignant. Instead, Jess and Lucy are watching her carefully, trying to see if she really means what she's saying or if she's just putting on a brave front.

"Come on," Gwen says, a little pathetically because they won't stop _looking _at her. "I have a new boyfriend now. You should be able to talk about him."

They don't let up. They're smart girls and that's why they get along with Gwen so well, so that can tell that she's kind of talking out of her ass. She doesn't like talking about Peter, not at all, and she doesn't want them to just start it up because she's got Hunter now. Because Peter and Hunter as so infinitely different in her mind, and Jess was right with what she was going to say.

It didn't take time with Peter. Gwen fell headfirst in love with the guy, and she got her heart stomped on. Whether that's stupidity or just being naive, Gwen can't really tell, but it is the honest truth. With Hunter, Gwen's barely in up to her ankles, testing the water, making sure this is something she can handle, something she wants to handle before she even considers taking another step forward.

She doesn't get to say much more than that now, because the teacher calls their attention back to the front, ready to discuss a question that another student has raised with her.

Gwen remembers to text Hunter and gives a lame reason for the lie. _If Lucy asks, I totally stayed at yours last night. It's a stupid bet, don't ask._

.

Of course, because she's a girl and she likes to over think these things, the conversation weighs on her for the rest of the morning. Not specifically the Peter part, either. Peter's weighed on her for a long time so this extra part is nothing new.

No, the part that Gwen focuses on is the fact that Lucy and Jess think that there's a chance she could be having sex with Hunter right now. After the relationship whirlwind that was her time with Peter, Gwen didn't really have time to think about it. The only time she'd really given it thought was in those few blissful days between the dinner at her home and the death of her father. In reality, it was only two weeks.

Jesus, how can she be so hung up on a guy that she only dated for two weeks?

Looking at it that way, it kind of makes sense that she could be doing it with Hunter after five weeks. Her friends don't know that the first time they kissed was only that weekend. The facts that her friends can see are that Gwen was in a horrible break up, Gwen's now dating a really sweet new guy and Gwen has every right to get physical and then blame it on her teenage hormones.

At least, that's what Jess tells her when she asks about it in fourth period.

But the thoughts, those ideas, that realisation gives this relationship with Hunter an end goal. A time frame that Gwen can ask about, so that Gwen will know when she's completely over Peter.

And because girls talk about everything with each other, she asks about it.

"How long should I wait?" Gwen asks.

It's a common free period, meaning that all the seniors are either in the student lounge or at the library studying. Gwen and Jess are, of course, at the library, looking over books for their partnered English assignment and trying to ignore the gossiping students nearby. Lucy is hanging out with Kent and Hunter, who are both at the gym playing a casual game with Flash. Depending on each group, they'll either come to the library or, once they're finished, Jess and Gwen will head to the gym to meet them.

But at the moment, Jess is, understandably, confused.

"For what? The second paragraph is kind of lengthy already and I think—"

Gwen shakes her head. "No, I mean to have sex."

And yeah. Okay, she kind of said that a bit too loudly. The group of gossipers get a little hushed and a couple of girls give her weird looks. Gwen flushes and stares at her paper until the attention goes away and then she looks back up at Jess.

Jess is looking at her with wide eyes.

"Uh... I'm not—I've never—I mean, uhm, Gwen, are you sure I'm the one you want to talk to about this?" Jess looks flustered and she shuffles the things in front of her for a couple of seconds.

Gwen shrugs. "Yeah. Lucy's the one I would go to if I wanted to know about deviant sexual positions. You're like me though—we think the same, and I'd like to know what you think." Gwen's words are kind of rushed because this is an uncomfortable conversation and she's kind of keen for it to be over.

She's probably about as flushed as Jess is, but Gwen feels like this is a conversation she needs to have outside of her head. Of course, in the end it's all her decision and stuff, but for now, Gwen would like an opinion from one of her best friends.

Gwen leans in closer. "I mean, come on. How long would you wait?"

This isn't really a conversation that Jess appears comfortable to be having and she squirms slightly in her seat. She recovers nicely, and Gwen hopes that to an onlooker her slightly pinkened cheeks just look like annoyance from the stress of school work. It's only good timing on their friends parts that save her from having to answer.

Hunter drops down into the seat next to Gwen and swings a heavy arm around her shoulder. "Morning, babe." He says, pressing a swift kiss to her cheek. He's practically glowing at her.

Lucy, who's arrived with him and Kent, narrows her eyes suspiciously.

Gwen leans into Hunter a bit, and smiles casually, while desperately trying not to give anything away. Lucy doesn't seem satisfied.

She sits down at the head of the small study table, while Kent awkwardly steals the seat next to Jess and is silent for a moment before she leans forward.

"So, you guys have a nice time last night?" She asks sweetly.

As can only be expected, the first reaction is the funniest. Kent jolts slightly and his gaze swings to Hunter, his jaw dropping open. Following that, Gwen glares at Lucy across the table and Hunter shifts a little in his seat.

Gwen worries for a moment that her text didn't go through or he hadn't read it yet, but Hunter's arm tightens around her shoulders for a moment.

"Yeah, it was fun."

Kent splutters a bit, probably because the bro code dictates that Hunter should have already told him about this, but Hunter manages to play it cool.

Lucy still looks suspicious, but she cools it now and Gwen manages to think of a proper excuse for why Hunter would have to lie for her. When she talks to him later

("Yeah, Lucy was saying some stuff and I sort of said some stupid things and this came out of it. I didn't lie and say we did anything—" cue some ferocious blushing at this point, "—but I did stay at yours. That's alright, right?"

Hunter looks a bit dazed, but nods. "Yeah, babe.")

He seems happy to go along with the lie. Kent is looking at him like he's a god, after all, and after all the lying Gwen can handle a couple of small lies.

Until, of course, it gets around.

.

By the end of fifth period that day it's a faintly buzzing rumour that Gwen doesn't give much thought to. Two days later, however, when Peter finally returns to school, it's so talked about that it's practically fact at this point (even if everyone doesn't know that nothing really happened).

Gwen is working on ignoring the judgemental looks she's getting from all the girls while smiling at Hunter reassuringly every time a random guy high fives him. He keeps looking at her nervously, like he's worried she'll be angry that he's not speaking out against this lie.

Gwen can't complain though, not really, because it was her lie to begin with.

Instead she tries to focus on the more important things to her right now. Like the midterm she has to study for in Biology and whether or not Peter is fully healthy again.

She sees him around the school a bit for the first half of the day, but he's always with MJ or Harry and she doesn't know what he's told them at this point, so she stays away. She catches his eye in fourth period, while all the students are bustling around the chem lab getting ready for the latest experiment they've been asked to do, and he looks away hastily, before she can so much smile. He's kind of scowling, she sees, which is confusing and she's heading over to ask him about it when Jess intercepts with the apparatus ready. Reluctantly, Gwen backs off a bit.

She tries again after school, heading straight from her final class to his locker and waits there for him to finish his own class.

Gwen doesn't get to talk to him this time either, but it's not at all her fault and the exchange leaves her fuming.

Mary Jane gets to Peter's locker before he does and practically ignites when she catches sight of Gwen. She storms over, her heels clacking on the polished floor and gets right into Gwen face.

Gwen staggers back a bit, just because of the surprise. She stares at MJ like she's lost her mind.

"MJ—what? What are you—?"

MJ doesn't really take a breath before she gets right into it, nor does she let Gwen finish her bewildered question.

"Look," she says quietly, eyes flashing. "I don't know what you're trying to do Gwen, but it's going to stop right now."

Gwen blinks at her. Did MJ legitimately just—?

"I don't know what that was the other night, and I didn't ask—because, hello, ew—but look, Peter is my friend and he may be happy to be jerked around because he doesn't know any other way, or whatever, but I'm not going to let you do this to him, just because you're living the senior life."

Gwen is still six kinds of confused, so she just kind of gapes at MJ. MJ takes her silence as an invitation to keep talking.

"For the record though, your kind of behaviour is not okay, and it's not going to stay a secret forever. These things never do." She pauses and considers Gwen with a sad look. "I know you had a shit year last year, with your boss and your dad, but—"

"Shut _the hell_ up."

Gwen has been silent until then, confused and not really sure what to do or say about it. But the first mention of her father—some sort of accusation with him as her excuse—is enough to snap Gwen to the offensive.

She takes a step forward and MJ, who seems to realise that bringing George into this was a mistake, takes a step back.

"You don't know a single thing about what happened last year." Gwen says furiously. "Don't you dare assume you can talk about it."

MJ pauses a little and opens her mouth before closing it again. She's not given up, Gwen can tell, but she understands that a late father isn't the way to get her point across. Gwen finds it a little amusing later on that this is the first thing that makes her display some level of tact.

Even angry MJ still has all her enthusiasm and fire. It's a little bit terrifying, but according to her friends, Gwen can give as good as she gets—("it's this motherly thing you do. Whenever you're angry at someone, it's like being yelled at by a teacher or my parents.")— Gwen's not quite sure what to do with that feedback though.

MJ takes a deep breath.

"You're hurting him," she says.

And yeah, that kind of stop Gwen in her angry motherly tracks. She stops and tries to think of several things to say, fails and finally just says, "what?"

MJ shrugs and looks around. Not many people are looking, even though they've been kind of yelling at each other for a while now.

"What you're doing—this stringing him along and whatever else—it's upsetting him. He's tired all the time and he's always watching you and I just—I need you to stop it." MJ says.

See the thing is, Gwen remembers a time when she and MJ were incredibly close. Friends in middle school because of their conflicting personalities that just didn't quite mesh in the high school environment. MJ's a party goer, she was loud and she had fun and she had a shit load of friends. Gwen's social chair, a studier by nature and committed to hundreds of things that don't give her time for partying. Back then, MJ has livened Gwen up while Gwen had calmed MJ down a bit.

Like she said, it didn't really work in high school.

The point is Gwen knows when MJ is being serious—like she is now. She's not jumping on the balls of her feet, and she's not spitting furious fire—she's just asking. Sobering for a moment to ask an honest to god request.

But Gwen can't help her here.

"Peter dumped me." Gwen says coolly, incredibly proud that her voice isn't wobbling.

And Gwen feels marginally better because MJ looks incredibly surprised by that and she takes a full on step backwards.

Gwen shrugs. "The only reason that he and I broke up is because he didn't want me anymore. Not the other way around."

MJ kind of gapes some more.

Gwen gives her a grim smile.

"Don't tell Peter I came by." She says, fixing her bag on her shoulder and stepping away from Peter's locker. "See you around MJ."

.

Of course, it's ten minutes later when Gwen's head is still spinning and she's only just left campus that a black limo pulls up alongside where she's walking. Gwen immediately starts thinking of kidnapping reaction things she's learnt—and is immensely relieved when the window rolls down and Harry sticks his head out. (Mostly because she was drawing blanks at the 'run like hell' step of avoiding being kidnapped).

"Hey Gwen." Harry says, kind of awkwardly. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

He's sticking his head out of a slowly moving limousine, so this whole thing is kind of surreal and Gwen doesn't know what to do other than shrug and say, "yeah."

Harry smiles. "I was wondering if you're still doing that study session for bio? I'm kind of having some trouble and I—" he trails off, leaving the request in the air.

Gwen is suddenly six kinds of annoyed with her life because now she has to try and think of a tactful way to tell Harry that no, he can't come, because he rejected one of her best friends and that would make things incredibly awkward.

Harry seems to pick up on that before she can form the words.

"I understand if Jess doesn't want me there, but if you could ask—or something—just because." He pauses and sighs, and it really does the trick. He's selling the poor rich boy act like a pro. "I'm having a lot of trouble, Gwen."

And what is Gwen if not a sucker for a sob story?

.

**a/n: **shortish chapter today because this is one of those required fillers with no Peter that I don't like writing. Don't worry though, he'll be back in full force next chapter. Please review :)


	8. seven

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything that you recognise. All rights go to the respective owners.

**A/N: **thanks for all the reviews for last chapter. I'm glad people are interested in reading what I've got for you.

.

When Gwen does eventually get around to asking Jess about Harry, it's two days later and she's put it off as long as she can. Her last two days have been a miserable mix of switching between searching for and avoiding Peter, dealing with the repercussions of her lie about Hunter and avoiding Harry's hopeful looks whenever she runs into him into the halls. She would have been able to stretch out not asking Jess for at least another day though, if she hadn't run into Harry with Jess next to her.

Harry and Jess acted as awkwardly as anyone might when someone was rejected by the other. Jess studied her shoes of choice for the day and Harry was suddenly convinced that the lockers were the sort of place he'd like to see the inside of and kind of shoved himself inside.

Well, at least, that was the normal drill.

Gwen tries to think of it as complimentary that Harry was so interested in their study group that he was willing to brave the awkwardness of talking to Jess again, but not right now. At that moment, she is a bit busy trying to get him to walk the hell away.

He didn't. He hasn't really walked right up to them, but he's standing in the middle of the hallway, looking at Gwen incredibly hopefully and even going as far as to smile a little at Jess.

Jess blushes to her roots and yanks on Gwen's arm until Harry's behind them, away from them. She turns to Gwen.

"What was that?" she demands.

Gwen looks ashamed because she kind of is. She's supposed to be on Jess's side of this. Also, she doesn't have any substantial reason not to kick Harry to the curb. She's not remotely interested in spending any more time with MJ, which seems like an unfortunate happening of spending more time with Harry, and she's not really sure what to think about Peter.

He's been avoiding her. That much is clear as day. Maybe MJ did have words with Peter after their encounter at Peter's locker. Gwen wouldn't really put it past MJ to talk to him about it, and it's not like Gwen had told MJ any brand new information.

Just that Peter was responsible for their break up.

Which, obviously, Peter was already aware of.

So when Gwen looks for Peter, he's never around. And when Gwen finally gets the message and she starts trying to ignore him, he shows up everywhere. Which is worse because they keep running into each other at different places, and when that happens Gwen can see him as he ducks his head and hides behind things and even _people_ to avoid seeing her. Which is one part frustrating and like, six parts humiliating, because he's not exactly subtle and everyone can see how he's dodging her.

But whatever. Harry said that he was having a lot of trouble. And yeah, she's a sucker for people who need her help with school.

"Harry wants to join our study group." Gwen blurts out, because there's really no other way to come clean about this. She's momentarily glad that Lucy isn't around because there'd be a whole load of judging coming her way about not bringing it up sooner.

Jess pales and actually turns a little green. Gwen hastily backtracks.

"I told him that it probably wasn't going to happen, but he said he was having a lot of trouble and he needs help."

See, Jess is an old friend of Gwen's and Gwen usually knows exactly how to talk to her. Not manipulate her, or anything, it's just that Gwen knows where Jess's priorities lie. Jess is a sympathetic creature and Jess isn't the kind of person to let someone else's grades suffer just because of an awkward grudge. In fact, in the end, she'd be pissed with Gwen if Gwen didn't tell her.

Still, she sucks in a deep breath before she comes out with the decision that Gwen knows she's already made.

"What are you waiting for then?" she asks, a little reluctantly. "Go tell him he's welcome to come." She looks grim so Gwen hesitates, but when Jess notices she braves a smile. "I've got the weekend to prepare myself mentally. I'll be fine. Go tell him."

She gestures over to Harry and Gwen takes one step toward him before halting.

Harry is standing with MJ and Peter. Peter hasn't seen her yet but it's only a matter of time, and there is no way that Gwen is just going to stroll over there and embarrass herself. Besides, there's a chance that Harry hasn't told MJ and Peter about the study sessions that he wants to attend, and if that's the case then Gwen isn't going to be the one to enlighten them. Her life would be easier if Harry wasn't going to come to the sessions—but Jesus, if MJ and Peter rocked up?

Jess obviously figured all this out, looking at the way Gwen's face has probably contorted into some ugly expression. "Uh..." she says slowly. "We could tell him after school?"

As if sensing their gaze Peter's head darts up and he catches Gwen's eye. His eyes narrow slightly, he stares for a couple of seconds before he pulls his backpack higher on his shoulder and shuffles, moving around so that his back is to Gwen.

Well, that's certainly a more direct way of avoiding her, Gwen thinks, actually startled and a huge bit pissed by his move.

Still, its Friday and the school day is almost over and she's got work and then a date with Hunter tonight. She doesn't want to have Peter on her mind for the rest of the day. She had other things to focus on.

She pulls on Jess's sleeve, fighting down the flush on her cheeks (embarrassment—Jess had seen all of that, after all—or anger she doesn't know but she doesn't really want anyone else guessing either) and leads her friend back down the hall.

"We'll talk to him after class," she concedes.

(Naturally, Peter is the one thing on her mind for the rest of the day).

.

She catches Harry after school, without Jess because Jess and Lucy (who heard the news with a frown and a "What the hell, why do you want _him_ there?") are brainstorming ways to prove to Harry that Jess was totally undaunted by the rejection.

"We're cool if you come along." Gwen says, glad that Peter and MJ aren't anywhere in sight and then a little nauseous when she thinks about what they could be doing.

Harry looks at her sceptically. "Really? Because I saw Jess in the hall and—"

And now it's just about her solemn duty. Gwen interrupts. "Hey." She says sternly. "Jess is fine. More than that, Jess is none of your business."

Harry looks a little shamed but nods.

Gwen continues.

"We're all happy for you to come along if you need the help. Come to the library on Monday. There's already about ten of us, but we've always got room for more."

(Fun fact: Gwen's going to really regret telling him this when she walks into the study session on Monday, but she doesn't know that yet).

.

Gwen sorts out her Bio notes and finds Jess and Lucy before heading to the library on Monday. Her time with Hunter over the weekend had been lovely, and work had been easier than usual (with no random attack on the building which was a better sight than the weekend previously) and she was in an alright mood, despite knowing that some level of drama was probably going to come from Harry and Jess being in the same close area.

Gwen knew that her friends had been discussing what to do about it while she was unavailable, and she'd been expecting some sort of level of reaction—but she's still a bit surprised when she walks around the corner to her locker and finds Jess and Lucy there with Kent, his hand wrapped in Jess's.

Her shock shows on her face and it's Kent who corrects her.

"Doing Jess a solid, is all." He explains hastily. "I'm happy to be a pretend boyfriend for a while." The look on his face suggests he'd be happier if he was a real boyfriend, but it looks like Jess is still a bit caught up with Harry to have noticed. She's still holding his hand quite tightly which is reason for hope as long as Gwen is concerned.

"As far as we're concerned, he and Jess have been dating for three weeks now, alright?" Lucy checks.

Gwen nods her head because it's a lie thats easy enough to go along with and anything that makes this easier for Jess is something Gwen can support. Especially since this is mostly her fault to begin with.

"Hunter's gone to get us our table," Jess says with a smile. (They're all in his class right before lunch, while Gwen's a level ahead of them, and they're all let out a little earlier than Gwen is, so it's usually up to one of them to go grab one of the study desks.

Gwen nods and smiles, clutching her books to her chest and wondering why she's so nervous.

Well, no. She knows why she's nervous. But Peter is second in the class, only after her. There's no reason why he would come along to the study session.

Then again, he's Harry friend and there's every chance that if Harry asked, Peter would agree just because of that.

Gwen swallows, and tries not to look too pale.

It doesn't work. Kent peers at her with a frown on his face. "You alright, Gwen?"

She hastily tells him she's fine and tries to believe it herself. The walk feels faster, just because Gwen's kind of dreading what she'll find when she gets there. When they do arrive, her heart is kind of pounding in her chest and she hastily tries to push the feeling away again because, come on Gwen, get a hold of yourself. Now is not the time for her to be flipping out.

Jess, on the other hand, is doing fantastically. She and Kent are chatting, and she looks like she doesn't have a care in the world. Like whoever is at this study group doesn't remotely matter to her as long as she's sitting next to Kent because they look to into each other.

Gwen really hopes they can work it out.

Gwen's heart sinks when she looks over at the table that they usually sit at.

It's not Hunter, like she'd hoped. Instead, Peter and MJ are standing there, looking awkward yet distinctive with MJ's fiery red hair and Peter's messy do. They're talking to each other, looking serious.

Lucy actually stops walking when she sees them.

"Oh, I'm going to kill Osborn." She mutters furiously.

Gwen feels about the same way for a moment, until she gets back into her own head. Lucy's words kind of startle her out of her jolt. Jesus, she can handle this.

She has Hunter now, just the same way Jess is using Kent. Only, you know, Gwen's not using Hunter. She feels a pang in her abdomen when she thinks that but she brushes it off. Peter has made himself very clear lately and there is nothing Gwen can do to change that. But this is her damn study group, and if he doesn't want to be there he can leave. Gwen's not going to ask him to leave. She's the better person here.

"Don't worry about it." Gwen says, resting her hand on Lucy's shoulder. "Peter isn't a problem anymore."

Even Kent looks at her like he doesn't believe what she's saying, but Gwen takes it in her stride. Fine, he's not a big problem. If he is a problem, then it's a problem that Gwen can handle. It's fine.

She walks over to the table, setting her books down, the noise interrupting MJ and Peter's conversation. They both jump slightly from the noise and search for what caused it. When they see her, MJ flushes awkwardly and looks away and Peter—Jesus, Peter actually glares at her before he looks down to the table.

What the hell?

"Hi," Gwen says tightly, her heart beating wildly in her chest. "Did Harry bring you two to study as well?"

She's actually ridiculous proud of herself for sounding so casual. It comes out bored, if a little pissed, but not like she's actually feeling. Which is, of course, like the best way for her to go from here would be to turn on her heel and hightail it to somewhere far away.

MJ shakes her head.

"We're just here to show Harry where he needs to be. Peter knew where your study session was so—" MJ's answer is interrupting by Peter making an abortive noise, and Gwen can probably figure out why. The back of his neck is red now, and Gwen gets a little more annoyed because, come on, they _dated._ It's not exactly illogical that he would know where her study group was set up.

She takes a deep breath and tries not to look too pissed. It's not really working, because while she's apparently alright at hiding her terror, she's pretty shit at hiding the anger.

MJ looks really uncomfortable though, so she's doing something right.

"Alright then," the redhead says, shifting slightly on her feet. "We'll, Harry's here now, so we're just going to—"

Gwen doesn't catch the end of that because she's suddenly attacked from behind. She tenses for a moment, before she realises that the thick arm now draped heavily over her shoulder is Hunter's, and then she relaxes for a moment (because she's not actually being attacked). Then, of course, she remembers in whose company she is, and she tenses up all over again.

Hunter doesn't appear to notice.

Gwen obviously knows, on some level, that this is a challenge. Peter is here, and Hunter is very aware of her past with Peter. It's kind of like the Kent and Jess thing, only Hunter isn't someone that Gwen is rubbing in Peter's face. Hunter is rubbing his relationship with Gwen in Peter's face. It's a claim thing, she supposes—which is only to be expected from a seventeen year old guy when his girlfriend is talking to an ex she still clearly has issues with.

Peter's not doing himself any favours though.

His grip on his backpack bag is tight, strong and his lips are closed. His jaw is set and his eyes are hard and he's staring down Hunter with everything that he has to offer. It's kind of like when he has confrontations with Flash these days. The two guys are relatively civil with each other, but their disagreements are still present.

Peter holds himself these days like a man strong enough to back up his threats, which is an easy leap to make seeing as he's a superhero in his spare time.

Still, Hunter doesn't seem willing to back down.

Gwen can't for the life of her figure out why some girls are interested in being torn between two guys. The idea of these two fighting over her makes her feel kind of ill.

"Parker." Hunter says, a cool tone to his voice. "Haven't seen you around a lot lately."

Peter stares at him evenly. "No," he comes back with. He's controlling himself, that much is clear, but his voice comes out as impressively passive as Gwen's had earlier. Like this display is almost amusing him. It surprised Gwen because she's never seen him act like that before. He's always more of an awkward talker—stiff when he needs to be himself and tough at the same time.

"Any reason for that?" Hunter asks.

"Hunter..." Gwen says quietly, but he doesn't pay her any attention. When Gwen looks back to Peter she can see that if anything, that's suddenly annoying Peter more than anything and she feels a rush of emotion.

Jesus, what is wrong with her?

Peter shrugs, still acting like this conversation is everything that he can handle. "You know," he says, breaking out a playful grin that Gwen hasn't ever seen on him before. "The great ex debate. What can you do when you're forced to see your ex every day?"

Forced? Gwen thinks. Hold on one damn second.

Hunter stiffens though, like the reminder that Peter and Gwen dated is something that he hadn't thought he'd have to deal with. Peter's smirking slightly and anyone watching (which is a lot of people at this point, Kent and Jess and Lucy are all standing behind her and Harry—who arrived with Hunter—and MJ are standing awkwardly near Peter) can see the implication.

Any relationship that Hunter has had with Gwen, is something that Peter had first. Because apparently that sort of thing is important.

She is abruptly furious with Peter. How dare he imply that she is something to be possessed by each of her boyfriends? Whatever she chooses to share with Hunter is her own damn business, and the same went for what she chose to share with Peter. She feels betrayed as well, because she'd thought that Peter was better than this sort of petty fighting.

She thinks to the moment with Flash, in the basketball courts that had led to his meeting with the principal. Gwen wasn't there but she heard about it. She's never asked Peter because there are so many things that she knows he regrets about that moment and she never wants to bring them to his mind—but the stories are all sort of the same. Peter and Flash swapped, Jess had said—because she'd been there at the time. Peter was doing the taunting, and Flash was the victim.

It's not quite as bad, but Gwen feels like she can suddenly understand. Until this moment, she's never been able to connect that Peter with hers, and it's worrying that she can now.

"Pete," Harry says from the side. "Maybe you should just go—"

"Nah." Hunter interrupts Harry, who Gwen has suddenly felt a surge of admiration for. "Hang around Parker. Tell me what you're saying."

Peter shrugs. "With your brainpower, Cook, you can call me in two to three days when you figure it out yourself."

Gwen abruptly figures out it. There is no stutter or worry about Peter's voice because he's not chanelling Peter any more. This is all Spiderman, this is all confidence that he's found—the result of his vigilante status. People in the news who've been caught by Spiderman are always interviewed by the press, just so they can get more of an insight into him. He's a arrogant, confident jackass apparently. According to the criminals at least. Gwen couldn't see it before.

She could see it now.

And she's done with this conversation.

Hunter makes a violent move, finally pulling his arm away from Gwen and only stops when Gwen takes a strong step forward and gets right in front of him. She doesn't talk to him, instead pressing her palm to her chest as she turns to look at Peter.

"That is _enough._" She says, and she says it viciously enough that both boys start slightly, turning away from each other to look at her.

She glares furiously at Peter.

"We are here to do work. If you are going to act like a child then take it the _hell _outside." She orders.

(She vaguely hears Lucy's impressed "Go Stacy," and she ignores it anyway, because this is not the time to be distracted).

Gwen aims her comment at Peter, because Hunter hasn't done anything. Sure, there was a bit of territorial things going on in the beginning and Hunter started it, but Peter rose to the bait and Gwen was damn well finishing it before Peter said something that he would regret.

Peter stares at her evenly for a second, looking away from Hunter like he doesn't matter remotely, and watches her.

There is a pause.

Then he shrugs, sticks his hands in his hoodie pockets and steps back, glance flicking back to Hunter. "You're the boss." He says to Gwen starkly and she's angry to hear his Spiderman tone still present. He turns on his heel and head away, not sparing her a second glance. MJ glances awkwardly at Harry before racing after him.

Gwen scowls at his retreating back. Then she turns to Hunter. "Thank you," she says because she means it and she's really glad he listened to her. Then she turns to the rest of the group. "You should get started without me." She says. She glances again at Peter and thinks of everything that she's damn well going to say to him in a minute.

Hunter seems to figure out where she's going. "Gwen, don't—"

She kisses him to shut him up, a quick brief press of the lips and all that's appropriate in the library at lunch time.

"I'm just going to scream and yell at him." Gwen explains, because that's fair, right? "Then he'll leave us alone."

Even now, Gwen's not sure if that's what she wants, but she doesn't let her resolve waver. She squeezes his arm before turning, and stalking after Peter.

By the time she catches up with him, they're in the corridors and MJ is talking desperately to Peter, who looks ready to hit something. At any other time, Gwen would be there to help him deal with that, to help him calm down, but she can't stop replaying the words that he said in there, like _forced _and _the ex debate_ and she's freaking pissed, damnit.

"Peter!" She shouts furiously.

They both look to see her and MJ immediately goes to say something. "Oh, Gwen, you can't—"

Gwen turn her furious glare on MJ. "Don't." She orders angrily. MJ's jaw snaps shut. She looks to Peter who is staring at Gwen. MJ takes a deep breath and then shrugs. "Whatever. You guys need to sort your shit out anyway." Then she stalks off, her heels clacking on the floor.

Peter still looks angry, and he still looks like the version of him that Gwen doesn't like. She probably doesn't look much better right now. She narrows her eyes at him and squares her jaw. "You and I are going to talk." She tells him stonily. Then she stalks into the nearest empty classroom, waiting for him to follow her.

(There's a moment when she thinks that he isn't going to, is just going to walk away and avoid her some more, but she hears him move behind her and when she's inside he joins her).

She doesn't give him a chance to start this conversation.

"What the _hell _are you doing?" she demands.

Peter glares at her (which is so unnerving she doesn't even know how to deal with it, so she just tries to ignore it and focus on her own anger). "What?"

Gwen almost stomps her foot she's so frustrated.

Almost.

"What the _hell, _Peter?" She asks shaking her head because she can't understand, can't make herself understand this. "Why—why would you say all of that?"

He doesn't answer. Just glare.

It's the only invitation Gwen has to keep talking. She goes right ahead. "You can't do this to me Peter. You dumped me. You got rid of me. I can't—I won't—I won't let you ruin this."

"Don't worry," Peter finally responds, a vicious snap that takes Gwen off guard. "You've made it very clear you don't care about me anymore."

He stops and starts, like the words that just came out of his mouth weren't the words he wanted, and Gwen kind of deflates. Right. So that's what this is. Jealousy, or some sort of weird relative of that emotional family. Fuck. She can't deal with this.

Peter backtracks. "I—that didn't come out right."

Peter looks angrier now, but more with himself and it helps because this is the Peter that Gwen loves. (shit, she didn't just think that). This is the Peter that Gwen can stand. Because the other guy is a vigilante who dumped her and she doesn't like him at all.

She takes a deep breath.

"I do care about you, Peter." She says softly. "You know that."

He has to know that. Because she dropped everything last week to make sure he was alright. Because she admitted to him she didn't love her boyfriend, just so that he would stop worrying about it.

Peter looks up at her again and he looks so shattered that Gwen takes an abrupt step back. Her head is kind of spinning because this is the sort of emotional whirlwind that she's not totally capable of handling these days.

(She wants to go hug him, make it all better).

(She doesn't).

"Why did you lie then?" Peter says finally, and it's him—it's all Peter Parker and his eyes are big and his hair is ridiculous and this is the boy that she fell in love with.

Initially, she thinks he's talking about her lie with Hunter. But that lie is self explanatory, because obviously Peter knows why she had to lie. She couldn't just tell everyone that she was with Peter that night, because she's a taken girl now and Peter is her ex.

So she says, "What?"

Peter shrugs and looks helplessly around the room—at everything that isn't her. "You told me you didn't love him." He says, and he sounds broken.

Gwen deflates because she can't look at him like that and stay angry.

"I didn't lie, Peter." She says softly.

Peter looks up and glares at her, but it's not the same as before because his face still looks broken and upset and she knows that this is him distancing himself. "Then why—why would you do that with him?"

Gwen frowns. "What?"

Peter gives her a look. "Please don't make me say it Gwen." He says.

And Gwen doesn't really want to because he looks so upset, but she has no idea what he's talking about and she really doesn't see that she has another option.

"What are you talking about?" she asks. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Peter stares at her for a moment before turning abruptly, putting his back to her and spinning so quickly that Gwen jumps a little. Then he turns back to her.

"It's all over the school, Gwen. Everyone _knows. _How could you have sex with him after telling me something like that?"

And it all catches up to Gwen with a sickening realisation that he stupid freaking lie has again messed with her life. Of course Peter would have heard. And yeah, this is probably how she would have lashed out if she'd been in his place. She's still not sure how MJ and Peter's relationship works but she knows that whenever she sees MJ touching him her blood boils.

God, this is all so fucked up.

"I didn't have sex with Hunter, you idiot." She says angrily because also, she's kind of offended because she and Hunter have only dated for a month and a half and does _everyone _think that she's that easy?

Peter's head jerks up and he looks confused. "What?"

Gwen rolls her eyes. "I didn't have sex with Hunter." It's nice to say it out loud. Because it's the first time she's denied those allegations since they started, and she wants the whole world to hear it now.

Peter still looks confused. "But—"

Gwen shrugs. "It was Monday night." She says.

His eyes widen in realisation, but he doesn't say anything. His mouth moves though, to form a little 'O'.

"I had to make an excuse. I didn't have one, so Lucy covered for me—and then she assumed that I was at Hunter's and I didn't have anything else to say. So Hunter said he'd go along with it." Gwen explains. Now that she's saying it she's kind of blushing for no reason at all. Like, she literally has no idea why her cheeks are turning pink.

Peter's face breaks out in a slight smile and Gwen immediately feels some of her tension roll away. Not all of it. She's still pretty peeved at him, because he was a total asshole in the library.

"So you mean—"

Gwen interrupts before he can finish. "Yes. Obviously. I didn't have sex with Hunter and no one can know that more definitively than you because I was with _you _that whole night."

Gwen has the time to savour Peter's guilty looking smile for a mere second before a soft noise to her left catches her attention. She turns her head immediately to see and he heart drops out her stomach.

Lucy is standing in the doorway, her mouth open, staring at Gwen with a look that mixes betrayal and disappointment. Oh, and anger. There's a lot of anger. Gwen doesn't know what to call it when her first thought is to backtrack, rethink what she said to make sure that Peter's secret is still safe. It is. On the other hand, the words that Lucy just heard don't paint a great picture of Gwen herself.

"Luce—" Gwen starts urgently.

Lucy is outright glaring now. "Save it, Stacy. I'm not interested in more lies." She turns and storms away before Gwen can get another word out.

Fuck. They probably should have closed the door.

.

**a/n: sorry for the wait. I got reinspired for this fic when I found out that they've cast MJ for the sequel and threequel of TASM, and they confirmed that they're heading down the 'lets kill of Gwen Stacy and break the hearts of hundreds of fans all over again' route with the trilogy. **

**Naturally, I thought fuck that, and wrote this chapter and a second smutty chapter in my Peter Gwen fic 'Drinking Salted Water'. Check it out if you like. **

**Please review :P Also, it's pretty late and I can't be bothered to edit more than once—so if you spot any mistakes let me know. **


	9. eight

**Disclaimer: **Everything you recognise doesn't belong to me, and all rights go to the respective owners.

Thanks for the reviews thus far folks! Also for sticking with me

.

For a second, Gwen just stares at the door Lucy has just slammed and thinks, _fuck it. _Because Jesus, this drama can't always be her life and some day she's going to have to stop trying to fix everything. But then the reality sinks in—she has no idea what Lucy is going to do with the information she just heard, and there is no way in hell she can take that chance.

So then she just swears and moves, pulling the door open in time to see Lucy turned the car. Gwen breaks out into a run immediatly, following her and trying not to look too surprised by the fact that this is still lunch time and there are many of her fellow students sitting in the halls, eating and socialising. Hell, if only.

Gwen vaguely registers Peter running along behind her. He's obviously not having any problem keeping up but he's not running next to her for some reason. Probably because he's not sure how Gwen will react to that. Jeez, Gwen's not even sure how she'd react to that.

Lucy is a good couple of metres ahead still, and she's picked up on the fact that she's got followers. She's moving faster now, running herself because she clearly doesn't want to have this conversation.

She vanishes into the ladies room on the second floor and Gwen doesn't hesitate going in after her. Neither does Peter.

They both burst in, Gwen huffing to catch her breath because no amount of exercise with Lou is going to stop her getting _tired, _but Peter's totally fine. He leans against the door once they're inside, making sure no one else can push their way in. Gwen can't see it, obviously, but he's probably employing his spidey strength to assist him.

Gwen doesn't focus on him now anyway. Lucy is glaring at Gwen from across the bathroom—and Gwen has no idea what to say.

They're saved for a moment by the sound of a toilet flushing and a cubicle door opening. A pretty freshman steps out and promptly freaks out when she realises she's been caught in the middle of some senior student drama. When she catches sight of Peter and blushes, then frowns—yeah, he really shouldn't be in here.

For a moment, she seems conflicted between washing her hands and fleeing the scene. Lucy doesn't give her the chance to make the decision though, making a frustrated noise that pushes the girl into action. She doesn't so much wash her hands as she does rinses them, before scarpering. She pauses when she runs into Peter, who realises himself and pushes away from the door to let her out, before closing it behind her.

It's suddenly deafeningly quiet inside.

Gwen licks her lips and steadfastly doesn't look at Peter. She can hear him though, his finger tapping nervously against the wood of the door he's leaning against.

Lucy's glaring at both of them. "This is the girls room, Parker." She snaps, and Gwen winces again because there's a lot of venom in those six words.

Peter nods his head jerkily, definitively. "It is."

Lucy's eyes narrow further.

"Luce, please listen," Gwen insists, before Lucy can launch herself across the room at Peter. "It's not what you think."

Lucy shrugs, one of those defensive moves that say 'really, because it sounded pretty clear to me?' as well as 'fuck you' and 'I'm done' all at the same time. "Looks to me like you're banging Parker, and not being entirely subtle about it."

Gwen blushes at this, and from the sound of it, Peter falls over a little. The sound is probably worse than what actually happens, a weird little thump, but when Gwen turns to investigate Peter is blushing furiously and struggling with his facial features—like he doesn't know what expression to put there.

"Banging?" Peter finally gets out. "Do people even use that anymore? Is that still a thing?"

Gwen shoots him a look because really? _Not_ helping.

Lucy looks about as pleased with his response as Gwen is. She rolls her eyes and looks to Gwen. "Really Stacy? This is who you decided to fall head over ass in love with? _Good for you._"

Peter makes another aborted cough/fall over noise and Gwen flushes to her roots. Jesus, because that's exactly what she needs.

She shakes it off. "Can you please listen to me?" She demands quickly, because she's trying not to think about the fact that her friend just angrily declared that she still loves her ex. "Please?"

Lucy just kind of glares some more.

Gwen's known Lucy for a long time. Since kindergarten even. Gwen knows her patterns, most of the time. She knows that when she's angry, Lucy will always use the last names as a distancing mechanism—which is why the 'Stacy' is kind of smarting a bit. She knows that Lucy believes in loyalty and trust and that this, obviously, violates both of those. She knows that she jumps to conclusions and is pretty loud when she vents about it.

But they have been friends for a long time. Gwen remembers all those times Lucy promised to always be on her side, and to always have her back.

Gwen's not sure how those things are going to mesh this time, but there's a sinking feeling in her stomach that tells her she might have just lost something else from her life. (Fuck). "Come on, Luce—just listen?"

Lucy watches her stony eyed.

Gwen takes a deep breath. "You need to trust me, Lu. _Trust me._"

She can't really help her final please. It comes out kind of like a whisper because Gwen's suddenly thinking about losing her best friend on top of losing her father and Peter and she's not entirely sure she can handle it.

Ordinarily Gwen Stacy doesn't like sounding pathetic. This time, she can't bring herself to give a fuck.

"Please."

It's that that gets to Lucy in the end. Her stance softens a bit, her shoulders relaxing and her scowl falling into more of a frown. Her eyes kind of widen like habit is telling her she should be helping Gwen out with this. Lucy's eyes flick behind her and Gwen glances back at Peter to see that her tone has obviously affected him as well, because he's watching her with those wide concerned eyes she'll always see whenever anyone's hurt or upset. It's the same sort of look he had when he got her attention—all those months ago when he'd got between Flash and Flash's latest victim.

She smiles at him smally, but he doesn't stop watching her. Lucy lets out a soft noise and Gwen's head spins around again. "Seriously? You're asking me to believe you're not together?" She gestures at the two of them. "When you're doing stuff like that?"

Gwen doesn't really know what to say about that. She has no idea how Peter feels but she knows that there's certainly a lot of left over feeling on her behalf. And even if nothing has been happening, Gwen can't pretend that's not there.

Peter manages to respond though, in one of his moments of impressive eloquence. "It's complicated." He grimaces, running a hand through his hair and not looking at Gwen. "It's just—nothing happened, though. Gwen wouldn't do that to anyone. She's too good a person."

He says it and sounds reverent, like it's one of the things about her that he finds so impressive. Gwen flushes slightly under the praise, but Peter seems unapologetic about it. Even if he's not steadfastly staring at his own feet. He's fiddling with a loose thread on his fingerless gloves, another of his nervous habits. Gwen fights to not look too fond.

Lucy watches them both for another second before sighing. The sense of relief she feels when Lucy speaks next is actually kind of overwhelming. She doesn't actually know what to do for a couple of seconds, because it takes her so off guard.

Lucy squares her shoulder, juts out her jaw and glares for another second. "Fine. Talk."

So yeah, Gwen pauses for a moment because she doesn't have any idea where she can even start and it's only just coming to her that she's going to need a proper excuse about why she might have been at Peter's house on Monday night, that isn't anything sexy—as well as why she and Peter were arguing about it in a classroom.

She flounders.

Peter, still kind of holding on to some of that Spidey confidence, steps in.

"Gwen and I weren't—on Monday—she was just—we weren't _doing _anything. It was just—"

Yeah he's not doing _that _well. It looks like he really needs the mask and the suit to come up with the fast one liners.

(Gwen doesn't mind. She likes him more this way).

"She was helping me." Peter finally comes out with.

Lucy scoffs. "Don't even try that with me, Parker." She says angrily. " You don't need any help with your homework. You're the second in the class—I know, because Gwen is always going on about it."

Peter gives Gwen an odd look. "Second?"

Gwen gives him a withering look because now is not the time, but also nods her head because damn straight he's second in the class.

Peter turns back to Lucy. "She wasn't helping me with school work." He says.

Lucy scowls. "Then what was she helping with?"

There's a pause. Lucy's looking quickly frustrated again and Gwen panics because she can't for the life of her think of a good excuse. However, it seems Peter's on top of it.

"My Uncle died a couple of months ago." Peter says. Gwen starts because she hasn't actually heard him talk about his uncle since the day when he'd joked about Ben lying about her photo on his computer. Lucy pales because everyone knows that Peter's uncle died. It's not exactly small news.

Peter carries on like he doesn't notice. "My Aunt's still having some trouble and Gwen—" he pauses and for a second Gwen forgets that this is all totally hypothetical. "—Gwen knows what to say."

There's another pause now, this one more contemplative than tense. Lucy looks like she doesn't really know what to say and Gwen is feeling like she has no idea what to think. Peter is avoiding looking at Gwen, because that's happened a lot in the last couple of minutes and Gwen's been doing it too. She's not sure why he's not looking, in the end, but she's feeling enough emotion over this all of a sudden, and looking at Peter will only introduce what he's feeling. She's not sure she can handle that.

Peter takes a quick deep breath. "She came over Monday night to help, and it got late and we didn't want Gwen out in the city so she slept on the couch."

It's a good excuse, because it's totally plausible and it mentions dead people. If Gwen's learnt anything from her father's death it's that people will believe just about anything as long as they don't have to be reminded for too long that you've lost someone. Gwen's not sure about it—it might be a guilt thing, or just uncomfortable thinking about someone going through that much grief—but it works.

Also, people don't think you're lying too often, because who uses the memory of a dead relative as an excuse?

Gwen couldn't have made it up. She wouldn't have wanted to. Uncle Ben is such a large gap in Peter's life that there's no way she'd feel comfortable telling this lie. Peter is the one who's talking though, seems totally at ease and sincere about the lie.

Gwen's not too sure how to feel about that.

Peter keeps talking when it becomes clear that Gwen's not going to.

"We didn't really think about it until the next morning." Peter explains carefully. "Like—we didn't think about what everyone would think. So Gwen just kind of let everyone assume." He shrugs when he finishes, because there's not much more to this totally fictional story.

Lucy watches them both carefully for another moment before slowly nodding her head. "How'd you get Hunter to go along with it?"

Peter flinches a bit when Hunter's name comes out, and Gwen tries desperately not to think about how only a couple of days ago she'd held Peter in her arms and promised that she didn't love her boyfriend. Lucy notices, of course, but more Peter's reaction than Gwen's. Her lips tighten a bit.

"You dumped her, let's not forget Parker—" Lucy is already barking out.

Gwen interrupts because no, she is not having this conversation because of Lucy. They will have that conversation eventually, but not until they've avoided it as long as is physically possible. "Luce, don't."

Lucy frowns a bit more just shuts her mouth. Which is a good sign, right? Because Lucy is listening and seems to have totally bought Peter's new lie. She sighs a little bit and looks at Peter again.

"I'm sorry about your uncle, Peter." She says, stepping closer to Gwen's side. "But I think you need to leave Gwen alone for a bit. You're not helping anything."

Gwen shakes her head again because no, getting Peter to leave her alone isn't going to help anything. And she can't say no to him when he has that expression on his face.

"Seriously, Luce—leave it."

Luce frowns again, so Gwen quickly jumps in to make sure that she can change the subject. Peter looks pretty close to leaving and she really doesn't want that to happen because they still have to talk about everything that happened in the library.

"I'm glad you listened—and thanks for not running straight to Hunter or anything." Gwen says that because she means it and she doesn't want to lie about anything that's not necessary. Lucy could have done so much worse than run away from her and hide in the girls bathroom.

Lucy stares at Gwen for a bit and then rolls her eyes. "Whatever." She says. "You're my best friend and I'm on your side." She glances a bit to Peter and then back to Gwen. "Even when I think you're acting like a skank-ass ho." She pushes into a hug and Gwen returns it, she glances over to see Peter looking more confused than ever.

Gwen pulls away from the embrace just as the bell rings signalling the end of lunch. Gwen has a study period now, but Lucy doesn't. Gwen's not sure about Peter.

Lucy goes to leave, and then when she sees that neither Peter or Gwen are leaving turns to give her friend a suspicious look. Gwen plays it off with a laugh. "Seriously?" she says and Lucy sighs, winks—gives Peter a dangerous look before she swans out of the ladies room like nothing happened.

Peter closes the door behind her, and again the room falls into an awkward silence for a moment.

Gwen sighs.

Peter smiles and rubs at the back of his neck. It's one of his awkward smiles—the ones that keep knocking Gwen off her feet.

"That went well, I guess." Peter finally says, his words one exhale that ends with a dry laugh.

Gwen nods shakily and tries not to think about everything that could have gone wrong. "We can't keep doing this," she finally settles on. "The lies—I can't—I don't lie. I can't, not really, and I don't like it."

Peter stares at his shoes and nods. He doesn't bat an eyelid when there's a thump on the other side of the door—obviously a girl on the outside trying to get in—and the door doesn't budge a millimetre. He doesn't look at Gwen, anyway.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I just—I didn't know what else to say."

And Gwen gets it, she does, because it's not like they can just say that Peter got injured fighting as the cities masked vigilante. Gwen's not even sure Lucy would have believed them. No, hang on, she's certain Lucy would have called bullshit. But still,

"Your Uncle, Peter? You—really?"

It's not her most eloquent hour but the message gets across. She can't for a second imagine using her father's memory to lie. She feels bad enough when she reminds people that he's dead—like when she'd been talking to her boss about her job.

Peter, to her surprise, kind of grins.

"He'd have thought it was funny." He says, a sad smile playing on his face. Then he looks more closely at Gwen. "It helps—to think of stuff like that. The best memories are the ones that you'll remember and it gets better."

Gwen can't imagine the pain from her father's absence ever going away, but the thought makes her think of her father's amused smile when she'd told him she wanted to go and live in a chocolate house. She cracks a bit of a smile at the memory.

Peter grins weakly at that. "See?"

Gwen tries to focus on Peter, because that's what she needs now. She can't be thinking about her father or why Peter helps so much when it comes to thinking about him. She needs to be thinking about the future—and what that means for both of them.

"Peter," she says slowly. His face falls because he obviously knows she's getting serious. "Hunter is my boyfriend."

Peter flinches away from the word like it's a punch.

Gwen presses on.

"He's my boyfriend, and I—you can't act like you did earlier." Her voice shakes a little when she talks, but she gets the full sentence out and she decides to think of that as a win.

Peter shrugs helplessly. "I just thought—"

Gwen nods her head hurriedly.

"I know what you thought. And it doesn't matter. We're dating, and people are going to speculate about our sex life. This is high school." She manages to keep the blush off her face (but not her neck or ears) when she says the word sex—because she's thought a lot about talking about sex with Peter and this was never the way it really started.

Peter's resolutely not looking at her now, looking shamed and guilty.

She wants to hold him until the look leaves his face.

God she's so sick of having all these feelings for this boy.

Peter doesn't make it easy to give up though. He finally looks at her and his fucking huge brown eyes are staring at her imploringly and _fuck._

"I hate him." He says softly. "I never thought I'd hate someone but then—shit, I just hate him."

Gwen bites her lip because there's a good chance she feels exactly that way about MJ, so she totally understands. Not that he can know that, at all, _ever._

"You broke up with me, Peter." She says softly and fuck, yes, they are having this conversation in the girls bathroom fifth period.

Peter's eyes shutter and Gwen feels her heart drop into her stomach. Shit, she should have known that she wouldn't be able to handle this moment. His hair is all messed up, mostly because he keeps running a hand through it, and his eyes are huge and open. He's even biting his fucking lip.

"You know..." he finally says. "You know why."

It's the first time he's acknowledged it. She guessed as much on the porch when he'd ended it, but he's never consciously come out and said yes, there was a reason for the break up and no, I didn't stop wanting you.

Shit she's not prepared for this.

"I can't do this Peter." She says, and she takes a step forward, hoping that she can push past him somehow.

It only serves to bring her closer, because he steps forward, keeping a foot anchored at the door and grasps her shoulder again. For a moment it's like he's fighting with himself—unable to chose between holding on or letting go, but he ends up holding on.

He presses his forehead against hers and she wonders how the fuck she got into this messed up situation.

"Tell me." Peter says softly. "Tell me you don't love him."

The thing, Gwen realises, is that this is a cycle. She'll tell him that she doesn't love Hunter, he'll keep thinking that this situation they're in right now is alright—the one where she's miserable and he's miserable but she's not in danger and he's obeying her dad's final wish.

And the thing is that Gwen can't deal with that. She can't fucking have him hovering on the edge of her life for this long. She wants him too much to deal with some sort of compromise like that. She wants all of him, all the time and if she can't have that she's not going to stand around and wait for him because she can't. It'd kill her. (And okay, maybe she's just seventeen and still in high school and maybe a lot of this is just boy drama—but something is telling her that this is different and that's important, damnit).

She reaches up and presses her hands to his collar, her thumbs brushing the not skin of his neck. His face is so close that his hot breath is mingling with hers, and she closes her eyes. She remembers vividly the night she'd helped Peter in her room, hiding him from her family and trying not to think about what his wounds actually meant. Instead, they'd focused on each other's company and their perfect fucking closeness.

This is too fucking hard.

And Gwen doesn't cheat. Gwen is not the sort of girl to cheat on her boyfriend with another guy—even if that guy is Peter Parker. Sure, there's a part of her that's screaming to lean forward, close the distance and forget this bullshit for just a second—but

No. Gwen Stacy isn't a cheater.

Well, at least not physically.

She doesn't pull away though. Not yet. Because she needs this, needs this final moment with Peter because—well, because he's just Peter and she's not going to get this chance again.

Fuck.

He smells like Peter, like a boy who forgets to wash his clothes as often as he should and thinks deodorant makes up for that. There's a smell of coffee on him as well, like he drinks way too much for a guy his age. His skin is warm and soft and he's still holding her shoulders, gripping tight now, pulling her towards him with his eye close—stupidly long eye lashes fanned out on his cheeks.

"Please," Peter breathes out. "Please tell me."

Gwen has to fight to remember what it is that she has to say. What it is that Peter wants her to say so desperately.

And the thing is there must be a way to make this the end. And there is and she knows what it is and it's going to break both their fucking hearts but who knows, they're seventeen—they'll recover. Probably. Eventually.

She squeezes his collar under her hands, takes a final moment to take him all in, and then pulls back a little.

"I don't love him." She says finally, because this is the only way to make this clear. Crystal clear. And if there isn't one—then this is as close as she can figure out. She pulls out of his reach. "But I could. And you need to let me have that chance."

There's a pause.

She looks up to see his eyes and he looks broken. It hits her like a punch to the gut and she realises she's actually crying a bit—oh, fuck, good one Stacy—so she back tracks instead of trying to push past him. She doesn't stop looking at him though.

He looks everywhere but her, his mouth opening and closing like he genuinely doesn't have the words to reply. Finally his jaw snaps shut, and he closes his head.

His shaky nods kind of actually breaks her fucking heart, but he's gone and out of the room pretty quickly so he doesn't hear her gross sob as she moves to the sink. It's only one short loud sound, and she pushes it away immediatly because, come on—she needs to get a grip.

She takes a minute to breathe—because she was right and this was the only way to move on, damnit. She washes her face, gets rid of the smudged make up and takes a final deep breath.

When she gets back to the library, a couple of minutes later, she sees Hunter sitting at the table. He sees her as soon as she enters and jumps to his feet.

"All good?" he checks, sounding a bit suspicious.

She nods. "All sorted. He's going to leave us alone."

Hunter pulls her into a hug, and she returns it thinking about moving on and growing up. Over his shoulder she sees MJ hugging Peter in the courtyard outside.

She shuts her eyes.

.

**a/n: **omg the angst I can't even.

ANYWAY, I thought I'd update because I don't have much else to do. I walked on a particularly stabby little rock today and now have six stiches in my foot, so I'm sort of restricted to bed rest and I figured I could get a chapter out.

Please review.

Best wishes to any readers out there in the NY area, btw. Hope everyone's safe :)


End file.
